The Missing Cat Assistance group has a motto: if you don’t find their body, don’t give up.

This motto proved to be the very thing that led to Hank being recovered.

Hank, a skittish cat, got out of his home in North Carolina, America, on 18 May 2016.

Thanks to the perseverance of his person, Bryan, and a kindly neighbour who fed him, Hank was finally recovered in September 2017, a long and stressful sixteen months later.

(This isn’t a cat we helped find. We’re sharing Hank and Bryan’s story in the hope that it inspires you to not give up).

What worked

Bryan made extensive use of wildlife cameras, regular feeding, networking with his neighbourhood and finally recovered Hank using a humane trap.

Bryan believes Hank may have followed a creek bed to get to where he was found, which was two kilometres away – much further than most missing cats travel.

Bryan also created a ‘Where is Hank?’ Facebook page and posted photos and video of possible Hank – or lookalike – sightings, to build community interest.

Bryan tells his story

This is really long. I guess 16 months of cat searching would be long.

Hank is a timid, three year old, desexed and microchipped, inside-only cat, who escaped from our home on May 18, 2016. The garage door, door to the garage and door to the laundry room were all not completely closed and our other cat was able to get the two inside doors open and get out of the garage, with Hank following.

We realized this around 9pm at night and started searching for them. Our other cat, who has gotten out before, showed up on our back deck and we shushed him in.

We didn’t find Hank, it started raining, my wife declared him probably hiding in the house somewhere and asked my son to go in and get to bed. Hank never came out for breakfast.

At that point, it rained for 2 days as the remnants of an early tropical storm passed through.

He’s timid. It’s not going to be easy

Hank was a very skittish cat and I knew it was going to be difficult. He loves our other cat, and my son, but we think he was probably trapped as a young adult before ending up at the shelter. He isn’t your ‘average cat’. The one time we took him to the vet, we had to trap him in a room and corner him to get him in a carrier. I got scratched pretty badly.

He wasn’t just going to show up and knock on the door.

We had been putting food on the front porch and that night it was eaten. It rained the next night and no one ate the food. It was fine the night after that, and before she went to bed, my wife looked out and saw a cat on our porch eating.

She called to me and tried to wrangle our other cat into a bathroom to keep him from running out. By that time the cat had gone.

A week later, Hank goes into the garage

I ordered some outdoor security cameras from Amazon and set them up. I had read about a house trap on catsinthebag.org and was going to try to trap him in the garage. It was one week after Hank got out.

That night, I got an alarm when the camera was recording. It was Hank. I watched for a while, but when he started to leave, I tried to close the garage door. It was too late. He was startled by the door and he ran out.

He never came back to the garage, but another black and white cat did. That cat became a regular and I even trapped him in the garage, like I planned to do with Hank. Even that didn’t stop him from coming back.

I kept wondering ‘what if?’. What if I hadn’t have tried to close the garage door when Hank was eating inside it. What if I had have been more patient. What if. What if. What if.

Feeding stations are set up

After about a week, I started trying food in different spots throughout the yard, plus I got a trail camera, since the security camera required AC power to operate.

I wasn’t good at positioning the camera, and put out food in our back yard, near a creek bed that drained to a drainage pond. I felt that area would be a good place to find a cat. Then a gray fox came into the picture.

I never saw who ate the food, but did get a picture of the fox near the food. I had the camera set up too high and may have missed some pictures.

I joined the Missing Cat Assistance group [it’s free to join] about this time and completed the questionnaire [this is only viewable to members of the Missing Cat Assistance group]. The questionnaire helps members determine what may have happened to each lost cat, and work with them in preparing a plan.

A gray fox eats food on the front verandah

The Missing Cat Assistance group encouraged me, even though I hadn’t had contact in a while. I started putting food on the front porch. Something ate it, but they didn’t trigger the camera.

I finally got video of a skinny gray fox eating the food and was pretty down. About this time, a fox went after another cat in the neighborhood, chasing it up a tree and my wife said no more food.

I kept the camera out back, setting it up on a 5 gallon paint bucket so I could easily move it around. A few days later, I got this picture, which people on the Missing Cat Assistance group convinced me was a cat.

I think it was Hank. It was very close to where I put out the food.

Looking back, we think Hank hung around our home for four to six weeks before moving on.

Bryan reaches out to neighbours on Facebook

This encouraged me and I refreshed my outreach via a Facebook neighborhood group and Nextdoor. The person whose cat got chased called me a couple nights later and said there was a tabby cat in her yard.

She put out food, and it ate it, but wouldn’t let anyone get close to it. I got there and it was still eating, but no one had a good flashlight to shine on it. It finally left, but she said she would put food out and try to trap it, using traps I had borrowed from our cat rescue group.

Looking back, I don’t think this was Hank because his white chest stands out so well. She also had trail cameras, since they hunted deer. She set one up, but it never showed any cat eating the food.

Hank comes to Bryan’s back yard

A few days later, I got a clear picture of Hank in our back yard garden, near the creek bed. It was the only clear picture I would get.

Hank evades the traps; raccoons and possums don’t

I immediately got the traps back and put them out. I didn’t keep any pictures from this period, but my notes say he did come through. Most likely, I called any dark shape in the back of the garden “Hank”.

I soon learned that raccoons and possums were present nearby, because that is the only thing the trap caught. Wondering if the trap or the animals it attracted scared Hank off, I removed the trap after 5 days.

I got a blurry washed out picture of a tabby cat. I still am not sure if it is Hank or the look alike that would show up later.

Bryan gets inventive to save the food for Hank

I decided to build a stand to keep the other animals from eating the food I put out. The night I put food out, something left a mouse at my garage door. I didn’t have a camera set up there, but another camera caught a video of a cat walking by.

I accidentally deleted that video, so to this day I’m not sure who did it.

Lookalike Cat appears on camera

After the mouse experience, I put a camera in front of the garage door. The next night, it recorded a cat coming by, looking into the slightly open garage, but not coming in to get the food there, then moving on.

I thought it was Hank, but it really was a look alike whose left side looked similar to Hank but its right side doesn’t.

After that, I started getting pictures of the look alike. There were also pictures that weren’t the look alike, but didn’t have clear details similar to Hank’s, either.

Hank’s Facebook page is born

During a 3 week period where neither Lookalike or Hank appeared, I started working on a Facebook page documenting all my efforts, with the intent of getting a network of people looking.

I wanted to time it with a Hank appearance to let people know he was still around.

In early September 2016, the trail camera recorded an over exposed picture of what looks like a cat, following a similar path of the best Hank picture. I used that sighting plus some wildlife photos from the trail cam to generate excitement about Hank.

I was still not sure who or what it was. The non washed out part looked like it could be Hank.

Lookalike continues to make appearances; or are they actually Hank?

Soon after that, Lookalike appeared again and I convinced myself it was Hank, even though it had larger white patches than Hank should have had. I wrote that off to some reddish brown fur Hank had, that can appear as white on infrared cameras.

This cat appeared on and off for a few months. I tried putting food out again, but it never took it. That was strange: why would a cat on its own not eat free food? Maybe Hank was being cautious from that attempt to trap him in the garage.

Four months later, a neighbour makes contact

A little over four months after Hank got out, in late September 2016, a lady who I will call Phyllis, who had followed my Facebook page, called me to say she had seen a cat similar to Hank feeding at her house. She lived a little over a mile (1.6 km) away as the crow flies, through two neighborhoods and across a busy street. She also had a photo of the cat.

We weren’t convinced it could be Hank. First of all, we didn’t see how Hank could get over there. Secondly, it had a swirl on its body that I didn’t remember from Hank. And, anyway, the cat had left her property.

I thanked her and she said she would let me know if it showed up again.

I eventually had to admit that, besides that swirl, it looked more like Hank than the cat I was tracking.

Phyllis continued to contribute to Hank’s Facebook page.

Six months later, the sightings dwindle

As November 2016 approached, a long six months since Hank got out, the sightings became less and less: 2 in November, 0 in December, 1 maybe in January (no Lookalike), but February had quite a few cats show up, including Lookalike, and one that wasn’t Lookalike.

Another lookalike cat appears

In March 2017, I noticed a cat in our back yard as I was leaving for work. It was a darker cat and it ran away before I could get closer than 100 ft (30m) to it. It looked grey or brown, but I couldn’t make out any distinguishing markings.

The camera confirmed some sort of grey or brown tabby but didn’t record any particular markings. I called ‘Hank’ as it ran away and it did turn to look at me. I never saw it again. I don’t think it was Hank, because his markings do tend to stand out.

About this time, I found that Lookalike showed up a lot at our neighbors’ fence – sometimes 4 times in 7 days. I started focusing on that and trying to determine where he came from.

Lookalike is identified

I asked neighbors to set up cameras in their yards and, one day in June 2017, eleven months after Hank got out, my son came home and said he saw a cat that looked like Hank run under a slightly open garage about a block away. Nobody was home and he couldn’t see the cat in the garage.

I went over alone later and talked to the owner. They showed me the cat and it was clearly Lookalike – the cat I had been seeing for a year. I was dejected, but went through the trail camera photos, eliminating the cats that were clearly Lookalike.

It left me with a few incidents that weren’t Lookalike, including the original pictures, so I tried to focus on where those cats where coming from.

During that two month period, I would occasionally get a far away image that didn’t look quite like a grey fox or raccoon. I’m still not sure who it was.

Sixteen months later, a Hank lookalike is still at Phyllis’s

In late September 2017, a year after Phyllis first made contact with me, she posted a picture on Hank’s Facebook page of a cat with a very similar color pattern to Hank. I hadn’t updated the page for several months because it wasn’t getting returns.

This cat had been eating in her yard since February 2017 and had just recently started coming up on her deck to get fed. He had begun to be more relaxed around her.

She had a photo from seven months ago, back in February when he first appeared. Fending for himself, even along a creek bed, had clearly been very hard for this cat, as he was very underweight.

The photo was taken with a nighttime flash and looked a bit washed out, but the patterns were very similar to Hank’s. I was able to take a picture of Hank, lighten it, and compare its leg patterns to his.

They matched really closely.

I posted a few more pics and she did too. One was really similar.

If it looks like Hank, and eats like Hank, could it be Hank?

The other thing I noticed was this cat curled its tail around its front feet, which was a habit of Hank. She finally put together a side by side of the closest pictures and I was almost sure it was Hank.

We sent her a video of him eating and she said he ate just like that. On 20 September 2017, we went over at night to see the cat and I was sure it was Hank. This cat had too many unique features that match Hank from front to back.

He ran off when we got there, but came back later.

This cat had really grown to trust Phyllis. He would rub up against the deck when she was out there, would eat while she was there and would even eat out of her hand.

My wife went over there at nights. She kept getting closer and she was able to apply some flea medicine to him.

It’s time; let’s trap

Finally, we decided to trap. The first night, the trap was kept closed and he checked it out and rubbed against it. He ate food right next to it.

The next night, Phyllis opened the trap but didn’t set it and he ate food at the front of it. The 2nd time he came back, she had the food 2/3 of the way into the trap.

The next night, she set the trap. We stayed away, because he seemed suspicious of both of us.

Hank didn’t show up until late.

A long sixteen months later, Hank is finally safe!

Finally, at 12.30am on 28 September 2017, Hank entered the trap. It closed. Having been missing since 18 May 2016, he was finally secured.

Phyllis texted us and we went over to pick him up. We brought him home then kept him in the trap in our bathroom before taking him to the vet the next morning. He started meowing after the kids got up to get ready for school.

His health was good. He had gained a pound thanks to Phyllis feeding him.

When we got back from the vet, we put him in a bedroom with all the comforts and let him out. He went under the bed and started meowing. [Hank is now in the home he knew and loved, with his family, yet he’s acting as if he’d never been there. Hank’s behaviour highlights how cats’ territoriality affects them so much and explains why they act so differently once displaced from their home].

He pretty much meowed throughout the day from under the bed until my son came home from school. He went up to see him and he came out from under the bed to get petted. He also started eating and used the litter box then.

Hank is now reacquainting himself with us and his home

Since then, he has been getting friendlier to all of us and seems much more pettable in general.

There are a lot more details and videos on Hank’s Facebook page.

Within a day of coming home, he wanted to come join the rest of the house, like it was old times.  Hank is still trying to come to arrangements with old and new cat and human friends.

Now that he’s settled, Hank is more affectionate to the humans in the family than he was before he was lost.  He’ll allow people other than my son to pet him and will even flop in front of us.  Last night, he spent about five hours on the bed at my wife’s feet, for the first time.  He is still a nervous cat, but he seems to control it and purrs when we pet him.

I haven’t seen an urge to go outside yet. He does like to look out the window, but that seems good enough.

We can only wonder what he experienced in those 16 months of ‘living rough’. He seems to be glad to have safety once more.

We think Hank’s been at Phyllis’s for a year

After talking to Phyllis, we decided that the cat from September 2016 had to be Hank. I can now see that swirl on his side, and that it barely shows up in natural light. The night photo must have made it stand out.

So, we believe he was at Phyllis’s a year ago, then disappeared for 6 months, before becoming a regular, albeit very underweight, visitor in February 2017.

How he ended up over there, we’ll never know, but we suspect he followed the greenway/creek bed that runs through our area.

Losing your cat is one of the hardest experiences of all

Personally, this was probably one of the most difficult periods of my life.

I have dealt with loss of parents, serious illness of a spouse, death of treasured pets, but this was so difficult to move on from. Obviously, I recognized that I was missing closure, but it still didn’t make it easier.

My advice to you

1. Don’t take risks in catching them

My general advice is that you shouldn’t attempt anything too risky to catch them if you have other options. Hank showed he would have kept coming back if he wasn’t scared off by my attempt to trap him in the garage.

2. Leave food out

Putting out food is important. I have a picture of Hank checking the very area I had left food out in the back. I was worried about other animals, but Phyllis had videos of him eating with raccoons, possums, and even a fox.

3. Reach out to others

Outreach is so important. I was incredibly lucky, but it wasn’t coincidence. I targeted people I thought Hank would seek out. He wasn’t just going to come up to anyone. He needed some place where he could get comfortable and, once he saw Phyllis, he decided to become her friend.

It was the general plan I had, only it worked for someone else.

4. Keep detailed records

I kept detailed records of who appeared on the camera and when, other instances involving animals (like the cat who left a mouse outside our garage), contact with neighbours etc. I also kept all of the photos and videos from the cameras.

This enabled me to eventually determine that Lookalike definitely wasn’t Hank and that I’d been incorrectly focusing on him for a year.  It also helped me realise that Phyllis’s cat with the swirl was Hank.

5. Don’t give up

Your cat is out there. They can, and do survive. They will turn up. Don’t give up.

Thank you to Missing Cat Assistance group

I am so grateful to everyone on the Missing Cat Assistance group. I would have given up long ago if it wasn’t for everyone on that group.

I hope those of you missing your cats have reunions soon. I’ll keep watching the Missing Cat Assistance group to try to help others.

Bryan and Hank Shwerer