Blythman and Partners Pet of the Month April 2012

Blythman and Partners is one of the leading Veterinary Practices in the North East, running eight surgeries throughout the region. For information or advice call (0191) 284 1711.

Each month we like to put the spotlight on one of your extraordinary pets. They might have been very brave whilst having their vaccinations, gone through important surgery or perhaps they were lost and you have now been reunited – there are hundreds of reasons why your pet is so special to you and we’d love to hear them all.

This month we’re pleased to share the wonderful story of how Lesley Bainbridge’s pet cat Queenie was found and then re-united with her owner earlier in the year.

Queenie, a patient at the Blythman and Partners Gateshead branch, went missing on 4th July 2011, just two days before her 4th birthday when her owners moved home. Lesley placed a missing pet advert for Queenie in the Evening Chronicle on two separate occasions, but despite receiving 18 calls from people claiming to have seen her, they weren’t reunited. At least not until February this year!

Lesley explains, "It was interesting, the first call ever received after we posted the adverts in the paper, was a potential sighting in Saltwell Cemetery and it was actually just opposite Saltwell Park where we finally found Queenie."

"After seven months we’d lost hope of finding her but against all odds, on Friday 10th February a friend of mine who knows Queenie really well being a regular visitor to our home, saw her crossing West Park Road to enter Saltwell Park. However by the time he turned his car and came back down to fetch her, she was well into the park, but she did turn when he called her name. He says she was good on the road and looked both ways which might explain how she coped for so long on her own!"

As soon as Lesley’s friend told her what he’d seen, she headed straight to the park to try and find her missing cat.

"I went to the park immediately and called and called for her to no avail, but just inside gate seven is a house where a retired park gardener and his wife live, Queenie may not have heard me, but they certainly did. They came out and I explained Queenie’s disappearance and recent sighting. Amazingly they confirmed a cat matching her description had been coming and going into their garden for a couple of months to hunt for mice."　

The next day Lesley posted flyers through every door on West Park Road and three of the residents subsequently called to say Queenie had been in their gardens over the winter sitting under bird tables and even eating off one of them.

The following week the gardener from the park and his wife tried to make friends with Queenie when she continued to return to the park and although she took food from them, when they went near she wouldn’t let them approach her.

After a few failed attempts trying to catch an extremely cautious Queenie, Lesley contacted the Cat Protection Society who provided a cat trap to help matters along on Saturday 18th February, and first thing the next morning the gardener set it in his garden.

By 10.30 Miss Queenie was home, safe and well!

Once she was settled Lesley called Blythman and Partners for advice on any care she may need and to report her safe return. The practice advised giving Queenie worming tablets and a flea drop as well as taking a good look at her teeth.

Kayleigh Bridge is head nurse at Blythman and Partners Gateshead branch on Durham road, she said, "it’s not very often that pets get reunited with their owners, which makes Queenie’s story such a happy one. In most cases the pets aren't micro-chipped so there is no way of contacting the owners. Sometimes animals even come in with collars on, but without any contact details - so you know they have an owner but no means of contacting them."

"Most stray cats end up in the cat and dog shelter. If only more pets were micro-chipped it would make it a lot easier to reunited them with their owner and it would take away some of the strain on the shelters in the region too. In Queenie’s case, while she was micro-chipped, unfortunately she never fell into the hands of anybody who could scan her and reunite us."

"When owners move home it is quite common for cats to get lost, mainly because they have either escaped their new home or the owners have let them out on their own too early, before the cats have any bearing of their new surroundings."

"We generally advise owners when moving house to keep their cat indoors for about 6-8 weeks so that they get used to their new home, otherwise they often try and go back to their old home. To help cats settle into a new home it is sometimes worth using a product called ‘Feliway’, a natural pheromone that helps relax cats during stressful periods by mimicking the pheromones a mother cat would release to help calm her kittens."

Lesley continued, "Queenie seems to be in good health and although she had lost a little bit of weight she actually looked much bigger when we found her because she had grown the most enormous winter coat to keep her warm.　 It was in surprisingly good condition without any tats in it.　"

"Her little cat mate Ramsay wasn’t too pleased to see her back and neither was the new girl Kitty who had moved in sometime during Queenie’s absence. Two days later however Miss Queenie had resumed her position of Head Cat and all was peaceful again."

"In her first few days at home Queenie just slept and stretched in one of a handful of warm spots she has made hers around the house. She had no interest in going out until she had been home a week then she wanted a spell in the garden. She had a half an hour sniffing around but we stayed with her the whole time – I think it will be a while before Miss Queenie is allowed out alone again!"

If you think your pet deserves to be Blythman and Partners Pet of the Month we’d love to hear from you. Simply send a few words describing your pet and why they deserve to be pet of the month to Kayleigh Bridge at Blythman and Partners in Gateshead (blythmans5@btconnect.com) along with a photo of your pet. We’ll post the story and photo on our website and Facebook Page so everybody can see just how wonderful your pet is.