An indoor-only cat who slipped out of his home in Braintree, Essex, has been reunited with his owner after hitching a 15-mile ride underneath a neighbour's car. Four-year-old Olaf, described as 'a scaredy-cat who can be afraid of his own shadow', had been missing for four days when he was discovered in Galleywood.
The cat had apparently crawled under the vehicle near his home and stayed there while neighbour Abigail Harrison drove to work at Cats Protection's Essex Cat Centre. Ms Harrison, the centre's deputy manager, said a colleague spotted Olaf falling from beneath her car as she arrived. 'He must have climbed under the bonnet or wheel arch near my home and fallen asleep,' she said. 'I had driven all that way with this poor cat trapped under my car.'
Staff at the centre safely coaxed Olaf into a carrier and scanned his microchip, which revealed his owner was 55-year-old Hazel Ohler, who lives near Ms Harrison in Braintree. Ms Ohler said she had been desperate to find her pet, putting up posters, sharing appeals on social media and even organising a search party. 'As each day passed without sign of him, I started to lose hope,' she said.
Ms Harrison said Olaf's story demonstrated the importance of microchipping, even for indoor cats. 'We were able to quickly find details for his owners and reunite them. If he hadn't been chipped, it is doubtful that the family would have seen him again.' Ms Ohler added that the experience had been traumatic for Olaf, but he perked up as soon as he was reunited with his family.
