Norfolk cat feared lost in Scotland after sibling rescued 400 miles from home
Duchess was found hundreds of miles from home in Glasgow - but sibling Queenie is still missing
Last updated 16th Dec 2022
A couple from Norfolk are hoping for a Christmas miracle after one of their missing cats was found 400 miles from home in Scotland.
Toni Jarvis and Ben Smith’s four-year-old cats Duchess and Queenie vanished from their front garden in August.
Toni, from Gorleston, said: “I remember the day they went missing as if it were yesterday. We had to go out and both cats were playing in the front garden."
"We wouldn’t be out long, so my partner Ben said let’s leave them to play. I felt oddly nervous, but I left anyway. With hindsight, I should have trusted my instincts.
“When we got back the cats were nowhere to be seen. I knocked on my neighbour’s door and she said she seen two workmen in our street fussing both cats but since they had gone, she hadn’t seen the cats.
"I called their names repeatedly as normally they would come running home, but nothing.
“I waited until after the school run and asked everyone on my road if they had seen them and no one had so we went looking for them, walking and calling their names for over two hours but there was neither sight nor sound of them.
"It was very odd that they had both gone missing.”
There was no sign of Queenie or Duchess until October, when a microchip database company called a branch of Cats Protection in Norfolk.
Dutchess had been located 400 miles from home in Glasgow - with no clues as to how she'd managed to travel there.
Toni said: “I was at work when Ben called to say Duchess had been found. I remember asking if it was real, I couldn’t believe him."
"I was crying down the phone, with my colleagues asking if I was ok and Ben telling me to calm down. I had to wait for another phone call an hour later when he had more details. It felt like a life time.”
However while Duchess is now back home Queenie is still missing and is thought to still be somewhere in Glasgow, having followed her sister.
“We would love Queenie to come home to us,’ said Toni. “We appeal for anyone with any information to please get in touch. It would be a Christmas miracle.”