Missing cat found 600 miles away from home finally reunited with owner
Pepper the tortoiseshell vanished from her home in the Netherlands late last summer but turned up this week on the banks of the Danube near Vienna. How she managed to stage an incredible journey that would have taken her across three countries, likely passing through the German cities of Cologne, Frankfurt and Nuremberg before arriving in Austria, has confounded animal experts. Pepper’s odyssey came to an abrupt end when she was spotted by a hunter on the outskirts of a farm near the town of Aschbach-Markt, looking emaciated and sickly.
GETTY A little tortoiseshell cat from the Netherlands popped up in Vienna after months of being gone
Luckily, the hunter managed to catch the scared and furtive cat and take her to a nearby animal welfare centre where she was given emergency veterinary care. At first, she was feisty, scratching and getting angry at the idea of being examined and leaving the veterinary team to believe she was a stray cat suffering from a lung infection. It was only when vet Katharina Zöchling carried out a routine check to see if the stray had a microchip that Pepper’s incredible journey came to light.
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GETTY It is believed the cat hopped onto the back of a long distance lorry
The small chip in Pepper’s scruff revealed her home address in Tilburg, close to the Netherlands’ border with Belgium. Vet Zoechling contacted the named owner on the microchip database and sent over photographs of her feline patient. The owner immediately confirmed that Pepper was her cat and had vanished several months earlier.
GETTY The emaciated cat was taken to a vets when found on a farm in Vienna