But he turned up in Rangiora, about 45km from his home. Fletcher’s owner Rob Naysmith said he had no idea how he got to Rangiora.
“We’d spent hours searching for him.
“We’d resigned ourselves to the fact we might not see him again.”
Fletcher is a seal point birman, about eight and a-half years old. The family have had him since he was a kitten.
Fletcher was found using a combination of his microchip and social media. Naysmith said while he was microchipped, the details weren’t current.
“With Fletcher, we hadn’t updated the details for his microchip.
"So when he was handed in to the fabulous people at Rangiora Vet Centre they scanned him but they couldn’t get in contact with us because it was the wrong phone number and wrong address.”
Using the power of social media, people got in touch with the family to say Fletcher had been found.
“We got in touch with the vet and they asked a whole lot of questions, as they should,” said Naysmith.
“One of the staff was fabulous, she lived nearby to the vets and came out at 7.30pm to open up and give my wife and son Fletcher.
“He was very smoochy and purred a lot, when he got home, he just stuck by us, and didn’t really leave our side. He slept right beside us on the bed which he never does.”
Since being home Fletcher has had a checkup at his local Prebbleton Veterinary Hospital.
“He’s lost about 500g, so he used to be just on 5kg now down to 4.5kg. But other than that he’s in perfect nick,” Naysmith said.
The Prebbleton vets encouraged people to get their pets microchipped and registered with the NZ Companion Animal Register.
“The animal register means that as soon as an animal’s microchip is scanned by one of their approved users, they can contact you and arrange their safe return,” the vet said.
