Missing Cat After Moving Him To My New Home

[Seashells22]

I have a 7 year old cat, "Mister" who has been at my parents home for about 5 years or so. I recently bought a house and brought him to my new home. I have two other cats he never met and he was extremely upset about the move and especially about the other cats. He hid most of the evening, he ate and even explored a little. He was mainly an outdoor cat and I couldn't get him to use the litter box inside that night. I assumed it was because the scent of the other cats were present. So at 2 am he continued meowing and crying so I decided to let him out so he can use the bathroom. He walked across my yard slowly and went around my neighbors wall that divided our yards and I shut the door. Morning came, he never returned.
Mister is a smart cat he knows not to run in streets and he's always been able to defend himself with other animals. His only weakness is food. You feed him he's yours. But I left food and water out for him and for days the food disappeared so I had hope it was him. Until I caught crows eating it and bird poop along my porch. He hasn't returned and it'd been 6 days. I fear my precious baby will never come back. I am going to be placing flyers in my neighborhood and will be updating his microchip. Does anyone have any other advice? :/

 

[scraggles]

Oh dear, I really hope Mister comes home soon.

I have seen it advised on this forum to leave his litter box outside where he can smell it - he won't have associated this new house with "home" yet so strong smells out in the garden that belong to him might help.

There is a chance Mister is trying to find his way "home", i.e. your parents' home... Have you moved much of a distance from them? Plenty of lost and found posters around where you live and where they live...

I'm not really that knowledgeable in this i have to say but people that are more so will hopefully come along soon...

 

[Seashells22]

Thank you I appreciate that.
He never used a litter box only because he spent most of his time outside. He would just go to door when he needed to go.
As for the distance it's about 8 miles from my parents home. I don't know if he would make it that far. Plus my parents just moved down the street from me which made it more urgent for me to take him last week.

I am going to put posters up, i put an ad on craigslist and update his micro chip. Other than that I am not sure what else I can do

 

[jcat]

Eight miles isn't too far for him to return "home", so you need to alert your old neighbors and keep looking there. I've known cats to travel 10 - 15 miles to get back to where they lived and have read of cats going farther. Both my parents and my husband and I separately ended up taking in former neighbors' cats that kept covering long distances to get back to their old territories. Good luck!

 

[scraggles]

I would call into local vets also - those within a radius of both your old and new home. If Mister gets injured on his travels or if someone wants to check if he's chipped they'll more than likely take him to the nearest vet... So talk to the vets and see if you can post a photo of Mister on their notice boards.

Also do a quick search of all social media sites to see if there are any lost and found pages for pets or just cats in those areas. Keep tracking those pages - posting that you've lost your cat and also seeing what cats have been found. Any post that you make yourself make sure it's public so people can share it etc..

I would say also to call into any shelters etc. that might be in your area.

Do you have anything that might smell of Mister that you could put outside? - or anything with familiar smells - bedding, cat bed, stinky socks... Anything that smells of you or him.

Also I'd advise checking gardens, garden sheds, decking, outhouses etc.. Places where he might be hiding or have got trapped... Again, in both your new and old home if possible.

Best of luck Seashells22...