Four years after the Smyth household had deserted all hope, the decision got here: “We have your Blueberry.”
The beloved black cat who disappeared in November 2019 from the household home in Bangor, County Down, on Northern Ireland’s coast, turned up final week in County Galway in western Ireland.
A person within the village of Moycullen seen {that a} stray roaming outdoors the SuperValu grocery store appeared ailing and took him to the native vet on 6 February.
“He had cat flu,” Rachael Russell, a veterinary nurse on the clinic, mentioned on Thursday. “He was very docile but very friendly. He was in a bit of pain, and tense, but still wanted human attention.”
The cat had a microchip however a search of Ireland’s pet database yielded nothing. The vets then tried Europetnet, which covers 26 European international locations, and located a match within the UK.
They found his title was Blueberry, that he was 10 years old, and that he had began his odyssey 4 years earlier and greater than 150 miles away.
The Smyths weren’t anticipating the decision. “We had just accepted that was it and he was gone, but then my mum received a call from someone down south,” Hannah Smyth instructed the Belfast Telegraph. “They said: ‘We have your Blueberry.’ She couldn’t believe it. We all thought there was no way it was possible.”
The Smyths retrieved their pet this week for a joyous homecoming. “We are still in shock. It’s just brilliant,” mentioned Smyth. “He knew it was us; as soon as the girls brought him out he started with the head-butts,” she mentioned. “He was a bit out of it when we first saw him, but he seems to be back to himself now.”
Libby Porter, who helps run a pet rescue and rehoming group in north Down, mentioned the story confirmed the significance of microchipping pets and protecting the information up to date. “We’ve had pets turn up after two years. This definitely tops that.”