Walton

9th of February, 2021, we were contacted by Alana, about her foster cat Walton, who had taken advantage of a momentary lapse of a house door being open. He raced out the door in a split second and could not be retrieved, as he hadn’t been with the family very long and instead ran off and jumped the fence. No where to be seen. 

We offered advice and said we had a camera and small cat trap, that we had just had success with using it to locate another cat. So we advised and turned up with the trap and camera and worked out where might be the best place to put it. 

We, Jo, Mark and Lyn walked around searching in bushland, and around houses, and door knocked some neighbours. We set the trap up and advised Waltons’ family to put his bedding in the trap, his favourite food and smelly food. 

So then we waited, and late that night, we all got alerts from our phones and photos of …..Walton, at the trap. 

Alana is a great owner, she listened and worked so hard, searching and posting on facebook, tons of posters and letterbox drop flyers. They worked so hard to find Walton, and never gave up. They replenished the food, and we checked batteries and moved the camera. I will now let Alana tell the story about finding Walton from her perspective and everything they went through……

On the Sunday, I had driven down to Sydney to collect an FIV+ cat named Walton, as we were going to foster him for CatRescue 901. We had had him for just two days when on Tuesday 9 February, my husband completely forgot that we had the new addition and left the door open when taking out some rubbish. Walton used that time to wander out and when my husband tried to catch him again he panicked and ran. He didn’t know us well enough to come back. 

I was on my way home from Sydney at this point and completely freaking out when Jon called to tell me! We had a look around the neighbouring area in the direction that he went, but the road was busy and everything was so noisy I knew he wasn’t going to come out. I remembered seeing a post from a group called Milly’s that week, so I headed back inside and sent them a message, not really expecting anything to come of it. Lyn messaged straight back with advice on what to do. I went straight to Officeworks to print out loads of missing posters with Walton’s photo and my number. While I was there, the Milly’s crew turned up at home and set to work searching the area and doing some neighbourhood door knocks. They told me, to my surprise, that cats don’t usually go far when they get out – usually only 5-10 houses. And that Walton would most likely be very close by watching everything that was going on. This gave me so much hope! I had assumed that he would have just ran as far as possible. 

The Milly’s team set up a trap with a camera which alerted us to any movement with a real-time photo sent to our phones. With the trap set and lots of stinky food in the trap, it was dark by now. All we had to do was wait. Well, it didn’t take long! Just before midnight our phones started buzzing – Walton was there! He spent a while checking out the trap, which was just below our bedroom window. He was literally so close! I had to be patient in case going outside scared him off, so we gave him time to see if he would go inside the trap. Our excitement turned to concern when he disappeared again. Not long after we began getting more notifications… a different cat was checking out the trap. This cat was a grey and white one who we had noticed hanging around our place at night for a few months. Clearly hungry, this cat was on the hunt for food too but didn’t manage to trap itself that night. Unfortunately, we believe that this cat being territorial was what scared Walton away and prevented him wanting to hang around. So, our mission was to see if we could trap this cat and find out if it had a home or was indeed a stray. 

Meanwhile, in the days following I was out walking the streets, doing letterbox drops to the surrounding block, and putting up posters. Milly’s was advising me the whole way on what to do. Lyn kept in regular contact, as we strategised on what to do next. We tried moving the trap to a few different areas to see if we could entice him out. Lyn even tried to lure him with BBQ hickory spray around the yard. Basically anything with a strong scent is your best bet when trying to trap a cat. So we tried sardines and sausages along with some dry biscuits. We constantly had fresh water available in case Walton was around and was needing a drink. By this stage, it had been several days without any sightings, so at the advice of Milly’s, I did some Facebook posts to any Coast and local groups I could think of. Again, I was hesitant about this working, but followed her advice. I also went out at night with a Maglite torch looking under houses and in bushes for cats eyes! 

A few days later, we had success in trapping the stray cat! So, “what do I do now?” I asked Lyn! Lyn and Dakota came around in the morning and we moved the trap into our spare bedroom and decided to let ‘him’ out. The cat was a human-friendly, but undesexed male. It’s no surprise that Walton had taken off. So this cat made himself at home, while I started searching for his owners. A few people came forward to ask for more pictures to see if he was their lost pet. However, ultimately we didn’t find who he belonged to if anyone. It’s most likely he had been dumped or had somehow become a stray. 

As we were about to hit three weeks with no sign of Walton, on Saturday 27 Feb, I had a couple of missed calls with a voicemail asking if we were missing a cat. I couldn’t call back quick enough. A lovely lady living in an aged care home a few blocks away had been seeing a cat around the complex looking for food. She had given him some scraps and he appeared to be sheltering in a drain. As soon as she said he had the tip of his right ear missing I knew it was him. I made my way over and, yes, it was Walton! I was over the moon! It turned out over the three weeks he had travelled around 900m away. The lady who found him had remembered seeing a Facebook post and had scrolled back to locate the details, finding my number. So there’s a lot to be said for the power of Facebook! We were all thrilled to have Walton back, and he seemed overjoyed to be back in a warm, safe house. He was very hungry, but otherwise he seemed in good health. Obviously being FIV+ we have to be a bit more vigilant about his health. 

So that leaves us with three cats – Walton, our own cat Scout, and the grey and white stray. Jenny from Cat Rescue 901 kindly agreed to take on our stray (who was NOT cat or kid friendly). So, I made the trip down to Sydney that weekend to move our stray to a foster home which was much more suited for his needs. 

We are so grateful for the help of Milly’s team, for the continual advice, support and the lend of the trap. We were so close to getting Walton back that first night with the trap, and through the use of the trap we were able to get another homeless cat off the streets and into a nice warm, safe foster home before the cold winter began! So that was a bonus too! 

Walton (we call him TomTom) is loving his time with us and we hope he continues to thrive and we can be his fur-ever home! He’s very healthy and loving life. He is my little shadow and loves spending his days lazing on the lounge or bed. We had suddenly lost one of our two much-loved cats about six months before we started fostering Walton and he has brought much joy and healing to me, after the heartbreak of losing our lovely furbaby.

Below is a photo gallery of Walton. Before he was lost and loving life at home, after he was found.