I received the following letter about one and a half weeks after the search. Monk had been found on a far end of the island by a person who noticed him hanging around and brought him to the shelter. He was identified by his microchip.
Jackie - Just a note to let you know that Monk was brought in to Alameda Shelter yesterday and returned to us. The person that brought him in had been feeding him outside her home for a week after identifying him as a distressed and probably lost cat.
Search details:
Monk is an eight year old, grey tabby with white, free access indoor/outdoor cat that is not wearing a collar, but does have a microchip. He had been missing for several days when I was called.
I was told about a strong sighting when I was at Monk's people's house about a woman across the street who said she saw Monk on her door step just a couple of days prior to my arrival. She said she was familiar with Monk and did recognize him. However, later in the search, Monk's person said that she did not feel that was a viable sighting. Since I did not know that at the time of the beginning of the search, I did start the search from there, and the dog's did indicate that Monk's scent was there.
If the track had not led us to a distant part of Alameda and then to another distant part of Alameda, I might suspect that the scent was an old Monk's. However, I do always focus the dog's on following the most current scent of the animal's, so, based on that, I felt they were following Monk's current track.
After three hours, Monk's people stopped the track, and they said that they would continue the search on their own. They did say they did not believe that Monk would ever travel as far as the track was indicating since they did not feel that Monk ever traveled very far from his own home. I reminded them that Monk had free access night and day to come and go, and that many neighbors did confirm, in their search for Monk, that he would regularly access their homes and yards and rooms. Monk's people did say that they were totally unaware of this habit of Monk's. They always thought he stayed close by.
We left a few minutes at the end, per the request of Monk's people, to do a search for their cat in their immediate neighborhood, since they believed that Monk was still close by. We did a search for any cat in the area, with the emphasis on Monk's scent. Both dogs did indicate a strong presence of cats all over, but none of them were Monk.
I suggested that they extend their search throughout the island since, if Monk got scared and became lost, he could travel far and become disoriented.
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