A relieved family have been reunited with their cat more than a month after the beloved pet was allegedly snatched by a stranger and later abandoned.
Ralph vanished from his family home in Yanchep, 60km north-west of Perth on May 10.
Owner Wayne England told Daily Mail Australia that it was his wife Renee who first raised the alarm after Ralph failed to show for breakfast.
‘Ralph would be here [at home] at 5.30 or six in morning and around the same time at night because that’s the time Renee leaves and goes [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 get’s fed and he just didn’t turn up [that morning] and once the day went by and [he] didn’t turn up for dinner, we knew something wasn’t right.’
Mr England explained that Ralph often visited neighbouring homes in the area but always came back.
His wife began scouring security camera footage to try and find out what happened to Ralph.
‘By Friday night he hadn’t come back,’ Mr England said.
The couple then uploaded posts on local Facebook groups to spread the word about in a desperate bid to track the cat down.
‘For the last month, we’ve been hunting for him day and night really,’ he said.
The distressed owners were then notified of an alarming social media post.
A woman claimed that her partner’s work colleague had ‘bragged’ to her him, that he trapped a cat at his property [in Yanchep] before he took the pet to Mayree, an industrial suburb 70km south of Perth and [allegedly] dumped the cat.
Refusing to believe this version of events, Mr England drove down to Myaree the night his wife told him about the woman’s post.
The former mechanic visited a business that had been named in the post but was unable to find Ralph and drove back home.
After he came back to Yanchep at 3am the following morning, he decided to drive around the block before he spotted a car that had the same name of the business he visited in Myaree just hours earlier.
‘I Googled the business and it came up with his name which was the name of the guy that was named in the [Facebook] post,’ Mr England said.
Mr England said he and wife immediately sprung to action by notifying locals on Facebook group that Ralph (pictured) was missing, after he didn’t turn up several days later
Mr England said Ralph (pictured) often went to neighbouring homes in the area but the father of two said he always came back home
Mr England, who had never met the man and was unaware he lived just 200m from his home, confronted him on the morning of Mother’s Day and asked where Ralph was.
‘He denied knowing anything about it and several hours later he admitted to 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 to residents who lived in Myaree to locate the beloved pet.
‘We had so many people just 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 quest to find 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 from a Myaree local with photos of Ralph.
His wife immediately recognised Ralph from the black spots on his back and immediately raced to Myaree to collect her pet.
‘At the news of this, Renee left her desk like the building was on fire to be reunited with our missing mate Ralph,’ Mr England wrote on Facebook.
‘We could not begin to explain to everyone how happy we are to have our buddy back where he belongs.’
