A relieved family has been reunited with their cat, more than a month after the beloved pet was allegedly snatched by a stranger and later abandoned.
Ralph disappeared from his family home in Yanchep, 60 kilometers northwest of Perth, on May 10.
Owner Wayne England told Daily Mail Australia it was his wife Renee who first raised the alarm after Ralph failed to show up for breakfast.
“Ralph was supposed to be here [at home] at 5:30 or 6 in the morning and around the same time in the evening because that’s when Renee leaves and leaves [to work],’ he said.
Wayne England (pictured with Ralph) and his wife Renee noticed their beloved cat was missing on May 10
“That’s the time he gets to eat and he just hasn’t shown up [that morning] and once the day passed and [he] didn’t show up for dinner, we knew something was wrong.’
Mr England explained that Ralph often visited neighboring houses in the area, but always returned.
His wife began searching through security camera footage to find out what happened to Ralph.
“He hadn’t come back by Friday evening,” said Mr. England.
The couple then uploaded posts to local Facebook groups to spread the news in a desperate bid to track down the cat.
“We have been looking for him day and night for the past month,” he said.
The distressed owners were then informed of an alarming message on social media.
A woman claimed her partner’s colleague ‘bragged’ to her, that he had caught a cat on his property [in Yanchep] before taking the pet to Mayree, an industrial suburb 70 kilometers south of Perth [allegedly] dumped the cat.
Refusing to believe this version of events, Mr England drove to Myaree on the night his wife told him about the woman’s mail.
The former mechanic visited a company mentioned in the post, but could not find Ralph and drove back home.
After returning to Yanchep at 3am the next morning, he decided to drive around the block before seeing a car with the same name as the business he had visited in Myaree a few hours earlier.
‘I googled the company and his name came up, the name of the man that was in the name [Facebook] post,” Mr England said.
Mr England said he and his wife immediately took action by alerting locals on the Facebook group that Ralph (pictured) was missing after he failed to show up a few days later.
Mr England said Ralph (pictured) often went to neighboring houses in the area, but the father-of-two said he always came back home
Mr. England, who had never met the man and did not know he lived just 200 yards from his home, confronted him on the morning of Mother’s Day and asked where Ralph was.
“He denied knowing anything about it and a few hours later he admitted the whole thing,” he claimed.
Mr England then started his own Facebook page ‘Help Find Ralph’ and sent out almost 400 flyers to people, including residents living in Myaree, to locate the beloved pet.
“We had so many people message us and say, ‘Is there anything we can do to help,’” he said.
Mr England and his wife spent countless hours driving to and from Myaree in their search for their missing cat.
Renee (pictured) fought back tears as she was reunited with Ralph the cat on Tuesday
The couple and their children were reunited with Ralph on Tuesday, 33 days after he went missing.
Mr England received a text message from a Myaree resident with photos of Ralph.
His wife immediately recognized Ralph by the black spots on his back and immediately ran to Myaree to pick up her pet.
“On the news of this, Renee left her desk like the building was on fire to be reunited with our missing buddy Ralph,” Mr. England wrote on Facebook.
“We can’t explain to everyone how happy we are that our friend is back where he belongs.”