Glasgow cat reunited with owner after accidentally travelling 280 miles to Hull

Luna the cat is back home in Glasgow after a journey that took her around 280 miles south, having apparently hidden in a van and been driven to Yorkshire without the driver knowing.

Her owner, Emily Caldwell, said she was relieved to have the nine-year-old pet back after weeks of searching. Luna went missing from Ms Caldwell’s home in the Shawlands area of Glasgow on October 9.

Ms Caldwell, 34, spent weeks looking for her and put up flyers around the neighbourhood.

She and her husband had begun to lose hope and to accept that something bad had happened to Luna when an email arrived on October 29.

It came from a student who believed she had found the missing cat. The pictures the woman sent left Ms Caldwell unsure at first, because Luna looked thinner.

But a video the woman then sent made clear that the pet really was Luna.

Ms Caldwell was stunned to learn where the cat had turned up: at a college in a rural location close to Winestead, between Hull and the coast in Yorkshire.

It is thought Luna may have stowed away in the van of a member of staff who was visiting Glasgow and drove back to Hull unaware that there was a feline passenger in the vehicle.

Ms Caldwell said: “She does not normally roam very far. It is very out of character. She is a small cat, so she is a bit cautious.

“I have no idea how or when she got in this van. I think she might have got lost and been looking for somewhere to shelter, and she ended up being driven more than 200 miles and then just roaming around some random location until she must have got hungry enough to think, ‘right, I need to find some humans to feed me’.

“I’m so grateful to the students, who were so lovely.”

Luna was found at the College for International Co-operation and Development. Students there noticed her roaming around and took care of her, feeding her and giving her a bed.

Ms Caldwell said the students took the cat to a vet, who scanned her microchip but for some reason it did not lead to the vet contacting her.

The students then did some detective work and tracked her down after finding a listing Ms Caldwell had posted on PawBoost, an app and database where people can post details about their missing pet.

Ms Caldwell had a note of Luna’s microchip number, which the students took to the vet. The vet scanned her again and confirmed that it was really the missing cat and that Ms Caldwell was the owner.

The mother-of-one said: “As time went on and by the third week there had been not a single sighting of her, we decided she must have had an accident and must have been hit by a car or something.

“It was just a complete mystery and we had just accepted we were never going to see her again, and were feeling really sad, it had been a really anxious few weeks.

“Then I had an email from someone who had seen the listing on PawBoost. If I had not listed her on there, I don’t think we would have got her back.”

Ms Caldwell’s father, who lives in the north of England, drove to collect Luna and take her home to Glasgow. She arrived back on October 31 to the delight of her owners.

Ms Caldwell said: “When she was found I had a massive grin on my face all day and you just feel like everything’s right with the world again. It’s such a relief not to be wondering what awful thing has happened to my cat?”

Luna returned home thinner and missing a tooth, but otherwise none the worse for her adventures, Ms Caldwell said, though she slept for several days upon her return.

Ms Caldwell said Luna has also developed some new skills after fending for herself while away. She said: “Since she’s come back it’s like she’s definitely been toughened up.

“She seems like a bit more of a wild animal now, as she’s obviously had to fend for herself and she’s been jumping to heights within the house that I’ve never seen her do before, like jumping onto the top of the wardrobe.

“So, she’s obviously become very fit and strong from having to survive in the wild.” But she said that Luna seemed delighted to be home after her adventures.

She said: “As soon as she got into the house you could tell that she knew she was home, her tail was in the air, she was roaming round the place. I think she just knew finally, I can rest.”