Daisy Is Found in Poor Health Wandering the Forbidding Streets of Caerphilly Eleven Years after She Vanished Without So Much as a Trace

Daisy Had Tangled Fur and Looked Forlorn When She Was Found

 

"She was sneezing and wheezing and they (the individuals who brought her to the vet) didn't think she would survive another winter being outside.""
-- Sian Sexton

This is a tale about two sisters, one named Daisy and the other one Dory. Both of them are seventeen-year-old tuxedoes but there the similarities end.

Little is known about Dory but she nevertheless appears to be the very picture of health in spite of her advanced years whereas Daisy not only looks to be considerably older than her but she also has matted fur and is struggling to recover from a debilitating upper respiratory infection (URI). Although they began their journeys through this perilous world pretty much on equal footing, Daisy's precipitate decline in fortunes can be attributed to only one thing: the heartbreaking tragedy of becoming homeless.

Nothing is known about the sisters' early years other than that they were born in 2006. Either shortly thereafter or at some later date they came to be cared for by now forty-three-year-old Sian Sexton who at that time was residing at an undisclosed location in Dorset.

As far as it is known, the first six years of the tuxedoes' lives were stable and uneventful but that changed dramatically in 2012 when Sexton decided to relocate to Caerphilly, two-hundred-seven kilometers to the northwest via the M5 in Wales. "Soon" thereafter she committed the colossal mistake of allowing Daisy to venture outside way too soon and as a result she was destined to never see her again.

What, if anything, that she did in order to locate her missing cat is not known. For instance, did she even bother searching for her? If so, for how long and how thoroughly?

Secondly, did she fly-post her new neighborhood? Thirdly, did she contact local shelters, rescue groups, and veterinary clinics asking them to be on the lookout for Daisy? Only she knows if she did all that was within her power to have located the cat that she, presumably, had sheltered and nurtured for six years.

Eventually, she and Dory got on with the remainder of their busy lives and Daisy was all but forgotten. Sexton acquired two additional cats, Tillie and Sparkle, and at some later date relocated once again, this time to the village of Rhydyfelin in the city of Pontypridd in county Rhondda Cynon Taf, which is best known to the outside world for having produced singer Tom Jones.

Given that Rhydyfelin is located only about nine kilometers east of Caerphilly via the A4050, Sexton easily could have continued her efforts to have located Daisy but, presumably, by that time she had given up all hope of finding her and consequently had closed the book on her. If that was indeed the case, that was unfortunate because errant cats seldom stray far from their homes.

For example, in 2003 a brown and white tom named Snitch mysteriously disappeared from his home with Rachel Wells at an undisclosed location in the West Midlands. He miraculously turned up a short distance away fourteen years later in 2017 at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, ten kilometers southeast of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, where he had been fed, but not sheltered, since at least 2005.

It thus would appear that Wells had not searched either very long or hard for him and her unforgivable unwillingness to have taken him back would seem to cinch that conclusion. It must be admitted, however, that locating a lost cat can overwhelm almost anyone. (See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2020 entitled "Snitch Is Found Alive Fourteen Years after His Disappearance but His Old Owner Refuses to Take Him Back in Spite of the Shameful Neglect Shown Him by His New Caretaker.")

Common sense alone should inform owners that, with only their four legs for transportation, a cat could not possibly get very far on its own. Furthermore, even if Daisy had attempted to walk back to her former home in Dorset, she would not have gotten very far before a motorist surely would have intentionally run her down and killed her. (See Cat Defender post of August 14, 2019 entitled "No Respect for Life: Early Graves and Crippling Injuries Are All That Cats Who Dare to Set Foot in the Street Can Expect from the Bloodthirsty Motoring Public.")

There are exceptions to that rule, however, and one obvious one concerns cats that have been taken in from the street and locked up permanently indoors. Regrettably, there is not much that aggrieved owners can do under such circumstances without sufficient evidence that will convince a judge to issue a warrant for a surprise, unannounced search of a neighbor's house or apartment.

A second exception concerns those cats that have been stolen and spirited out of the neighborhood. (See Cat Defender posts of July 9, 2007, October 30, 2007, November 16, 2007, December 11, 2014, and February 8, 2017 entitled, respectively, "A Hungry and Disheveled Cat Named Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners," "A Crafty Bird Lover Claims Responsibility for Stealing Six Cats from a Southampton Neighborhood and Concealing Their Whereabouts," "Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton," "Uprooted from Home and Left Stranded Thousands of Miles Away, Spice Discovers to Her Horror That Not All the Ghouls and Goblins in This World Are Necessarily to Be Found on Halloween," and "The Long and Hopelessly Frustrating Search for the Kidnapped Mr. Cheeky Ends Tragically Underneath the Wheels of a Hit-and-Run Motorist.")

A third exception to that rule concerns cats that get accidentally trapped inside conveyances and are subsequently transported far away to parts unknown. (See Cat Defender posts of November 6, 2006, December 12, 2007, June 1, 2012, July 15, 2014, and April 26, 2018 entitled, respectively, "Trapped in a Moving Van for Five Days, a Texas Cat Named Neo Is Finally Freed in Colorado," "Bored with Conditions at Home, Carlsberg Stows Away on a Beer Lorry for the Adventure of a Lifetime," "A Tattoo Unravels Burli's Secret Past but It Is a Radio Broadcast That Ultimately Leads to His Happy Reunion with His Forever Grateful Current Guardian," "Poussey Overcomes a Surprise Boat Ride to Dover, a Stint on Death Row, and Being Bandied About Like the Flying Dutchman in Order to Finally Make It Home to La Havre," and "Schneewittchen Gets Accidentally Trapped in a Lorry and Winds Up in Wien but in Doing So She Brought Along with Her Considerably More Than Just Her Pretty Face.") 

Cats such as Janosch and Sanny even have accidentally wound up in the post. (See Cat Defender post of July 21, 2008 entitled "Janosch Survives Being Sent Through the Post from Bayern to the Rhineland" and Ruhr24 of Dortmund, May 13, 2022, "Nordrhein Westfalen: Katze aus Versehen mit der Post Funf-hundert Kilometer weit verschickt.")

In Daisy's case, however, The Fates elected to intervene on her behalf and they began to weave their magic during the third week of September when unidentified residents in Caerphilly picked up from the street a sickly and disheveled cat and took her to an unidentified surgery. To their credit, the practitioners were not only willing to have scanned her for an implanted microchip but they also were competent enough in order to have located one.

Numerous shelters, and perhaps even some surgeries, in the United States think so very little of cats that they do not even bother to scan most of those that they impound. Instead, they simply kill them on sight. (See WCAU-TV of Philadelphia, December 15, 2017, "Animal Shelter Euthanizes Man's Cat after Failing to Find Microchip" and WALA-TV of Mobile, May 14, 2008, "Cat's Microchip Didn't Save It from Being Euthanized.")

What then is the point of microchipping a cat in the first place? Collars and tags are a much better alternative.

It has not been revealed if Sexton had kept her contact information up-to-date in the chipmaker's database or if the surgery had to track her down by other means, but the important thing is that the chip was still functioning and, one way or the other, it fulfilled its intended purpose. Whereas some owners, such as Wells, do not want any part of their long-last cats, Sexton was glad to have Daisy back.

"I'm still in shock," she told the BBC on September 25th. (See "Cat Missing for Eleven Years Is Reunited with Owner.") "She's survived all this time and now in her final days she finally comes back to us."

Dory Looks To Have Been Well Cared for and to Have Led an Easy Life 

Sadly, Daisy was not in good shape. "She was sneezing and wheezing and they (the individuals who brought her to the vet) didn't think she would survive another winter being outside," Sexton added to the BBC.

Quite often referred to as the cat flu, URIs in cats can be caused by either the Feline Calicivirus (FCV) or the Feline Herpesvirus-1. Being pretty much like head and chest colds in humans, URIs are not normally of any grave concern.

Even if they were, there is not any specific treatment for them. Instead, an effort is made to ameliorate their symptoms with eye drops, steam inhalation (such as placing an afflicted cat in a hot and steamy bathroom), and an application of warm, wet cloths to their eyes and nose.

Above and beyond that, the best thing that anyone can do for a sick cat is to immediately bring it inside from the cold and stressful outdoors and to place it in a warm room and then to get some good-quality, preferably warm, food into it. Providing it with unlimited time in order to rest up and to regain its strength is also of paramount importance.

Such cats additionally sometimes need to be fed aromatic foods because nasal and head congestion often compromises their sense of smell. In some cases, antibiotics are administered in order to treat secondary bacterial infections. (See International Cat Care of Tisbury in Wiltshire, August 7, 2018, "Cat Flu -- Upper Respiratory Infection," WebMD, December 21, 2021, "What to Know about Cat Flu," PetMD, March 16, 2022, "Calicivirus in Cats," PetMD, March 16, 2022, "Feline Herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1), and the Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research, July 2020, volume 83, number 3, pages 181-188, "Prevalence of Feline Herpesvirus-1, Feline Calicivirus, Chlamydia felis, and Bordella bronchiseptica in a Population of Shelter Cats on Prince Edward Island.")

In most instances, guardians do not need to take cats with a runny noses to a veterinarian because all that either he or she is going to do is to conduct a series of superfluous diagnostic tests for the pleasure of sticking them with US$2,000 bills. Besides, there is not any per se cure for either the FCV or the Herpesvirus-1 and, once infected, most cats remain so for the remainder of their days.

Yet, despite URIs being relatively easy and comparatively inexpensive ailments to treat countless cats and kittens are senselessly killed off each year by their owners, veterinarians, and shelters. (See Cat Defender post of October 18, 2014 entitled "Hamish McHamish's Derelict Owner Reenters His Life after Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect only to Have Him Killed Off after He Contracts a Preeminently Treatable Common Cold.")

At last report, Daisy was responding well to treatment. The tangles have been combed out of her fur and she should be almost as good as new in a short while.

What impact, if any, that the deprivations that she experienced while on the street may have on her life-expectancy remains to be determined but, as far as it has been disclosed, she is an otherwise healthy cat. She is not, however, as healthy-looking as Dory who appears to have been especially well looked after by Sexton.

There accordingly is not any way of discounting the value of a cat having a safe and secure home and thus being protected from the species' sworn enemies. The same holds true for providing it with a good-quality diet and competent, if it can be found, veterinary care. By contrast, Daisy is an example of what the deprivations and dangers associated with living on the street can do to an even once healthy and young cat. Moreover, that assessment does not even begin to include the mental fatigue and wear and tear of everyday living on her own.

As for where Daisy has been for the past eleven years, Sexton believes that she was homeless that entire period of time but that seems unlikely. First of all, most homeless cats live, on the average, only three years. 

Secondly, Sexton's description of her as "very loving" and wanting lots of attention casts doubt on any claim that she lived for eleven years bereft of most all human contact. At the very least someone likely was feeding her on a more or less regular basis and she was spending a good deal of that time indoors and possibly with multiple temporary guardians.

The poor condition of her coat and her untreated URI leave little doubt, however, that recently she had been almost exclusively on her own for an extended period of time and that reflects poorly on the residents of Caerphilly. For instance, if one of them had taken her to a veterinarian eleven years ago she could have been reunited with Sexton shortly after her disappearance and thus spared all the suffering and deprivations that she was forced to endure during the interim.

On the other hand, ratting out a footloose cat to either a shelter or a veterinarian is a dangerous business. For example, if she had not been microchipped such a move could have initialed her death warrant.

Therefore, the only safe and humane alternative for individuals who truly care about cats such as Daisy is for them to immediately take them into their homes and to treat them as their own. They can later either take them to a veterinarian in order to have them scanned or to announce on social media that they have been found. 

Owners who allow their cats to roam without collars and tags and do not even bother to fly-post their neighborhoods and to search for them once that they go missing are by definition unfit guardians and, quite often, could care less if they ever see them again.

Whereas Caerphilly does not have the worst weather in the world, its climate is far from being ideal, especially for a cat that is forced to live out-of-doors all the time. For instance, overnight lows between December and April range from 36° to 38° Fahrenheit.

The city is windy and receives 42.2 inches of rain annually but, mercifully, little or no snow and ice. It is, however, rather dark and gloomy in that it only receives approximately nine hours of sunlight during the winter months.

Even during the summertime the thermometer rarely gets above 67° Fahrenheit. C'est-à-dire, it is an ideal environment for a footloose cat to come down with a URI. 

Besides dogs and peregrine falcons, Daisy also had to be on the lookout for black foxes. (See The Independent of London, April 19, 2023, "Rare Black Fox Spotted Roaming Streets in Wales as Public Urged to Call RSPCA.")

Daisy Is Looking Much Better and Is Ready to Begin Her New Life

Her most formidable adversary, as is the case with all cats, was that diabolical monster who struts around on two legs. In addition to cutthroat motorists who run down and kill cats for sport, Wales has its fair share of poisoners which the courts stubbornly refuse to punish.

For example, in early September of 2021 Tristain Paul Pearson of West Street in Bargoes, thirteen kilometers north of Caerphilly via the A469, poisoned to death with antifreeze two of his neighbors' cats. (See Cat Defender post of October 6, 2022 entitled "A Much Ballyhooed New Law Produces the Same Old Perverted Justice as Cardiff Crown Court Allows Tristain Paul Pearson to Get Away Scot-Free with Poisoning to Death Bailey and Luna with Antifreeze.")

For Daisy to have surmounted all of those deprivations as well as the threats made to her continued existence demonstrates that she is indeed a very special and highly resourceful female. There cannot be any denying, however, that the time she spent on the street has exacted a heavy toll from her.

She does however have long genes and that bodes well for her recovery and continued survival. "Hopefully she can live out the rest of her days with us," Sexton speculated to the BBC.

As soon as Daisy is well enough, Sexton plans on reuniting her with Dory. "It will be really interesting to introduce them again," she told the BBC. "I wonder if they will recognize each other."

That is a thought-provoking question but, unfortunately, little is known about what cats retain. For what it is worth, some owners have insisted that their long-lost cats have in fact remembered them as well as their former houses, toys, and beds but such uncorroborated, anecdotal evidence is far from conclusive.

Determining whether or not that they remember their mothers, siblings, and former playmates is an even more daunting affair. Nevertheless, it is believed that cats readily recognize their fathers and vice-versa even though males do not play any role in the nurturing process.

In the city of Hümmel in a section of the Eifel Mountains in Rhineland-Palatiate there lives a forester named Peter Wohlleben who in 2015 published a groundbreaking book entitled Das Geheime Leben der Baume wherein he argued that trees have brain-like structures in the tips of their roots that enable them to not only develop complex social networks with other trees in a forest but also to store and remember knowledge. For instance, they are able to recognize and remember not only their children but also their parents and grandparents.

They are thus able to nurture and protect them throughout their lives in addition to caring for other sick and elderly trees. According to Wohlleben, they also are able to recall droughts and to warn other trees of impending attacks by insects and other predators.

He further postulates that these memories are stored in their branches and that not only trimming but harvesting nearby trees destroys those memories and the complex social relationships that have developed in forests for over hundreds, if not indeed thousands, of years. By contrast, trees that are forced to lead solitary existences in urban landscapes are unable to communicate with each other and therefore do not have any memories to preserve.

If trees can remember, it would be foolish to deny that ability to cats and other animals. What they retain and for what length of time remains a mystery.

There is one crucial difference between Wohlleben's trees and cats. His trees are only capable of developing and sharing memories when they are part of an undisturbed and contiguous forest whereas cats are by nature primarily loners. Consequently, their recall systems may lag behind those of some trees.

The same phenomenon can be seen in modern societies where the conventional ties afforded by family, community, and religion have been weakened by individualism, television, computers, and advancements in transportation. Disconnected atoms that are constantly on the move tend not to be either sentimentalists or memory-mongers.

After Sexton reunites Daisy with Dory, she next will introduce her to Tillie and Sparkle. Considering Daisy's and Dory's ages plus the fact that all members of the household are females, there should not be any problems. On the other hand, if Sexton were introducing an intact male into a household that contained other intact males there potentially could be difficulties.

The one dark shadow hanging over Daisy's return is Sexton's plans to relocate to Bridgend, thirty-five kilometers southwest of Rhydyfelin via the M4. It is a city of fifty-thousand residents with its center city area, much like Caerphilly and Rhydyfelin, having a substantial crime rate. (See Wales Online, May 3, 2023, "These Areas the Most Dangerous Neighborhoods in Wales.") 

It is not a topic that is much discussed, but areas with high crime rates against individuals and property usually also have a high incidence of crimes that are perpetrated against cats, dogs (organized fighting), and other animals. (See Cat Defender posts of October 22, 2021 and October 31, 2021 entitled, respectively, "Condemned to Die as Dog Bait, Courageous Buzz Perseveres Just Long Enough Until He Is Somehow Able to Not Only Regain His Freedom but Also to Find His Pot of Gold at the Rainbow's End" and "The Arrest of a Dogfighter in Ayr Provides a Rare Glimpse into the Utterly Despicable Abuse That Bait Cats Are Subjected to but the Scottish SPCA Still Stubbornly Persists in Treating Them as Expendable Nonentities.") 

It is disquieting that Sexton feels compelled to change houses so often. Furthermore, since all of her recent relocations have been confined to the same geographic area they would not appear to be job-related. That in turn suggests that South Wales is not necessarily the best of places to live.

She has not had much to say about Daisy's future. "(She) might have to be a house cat," is all that she has confided to the BBC. "I don't want her to go missing again."

That certainly sounds like a good start although it is always possible that Daisy may have had her fill of the rough and tumble streets and miserable weather outside. Hopefully, that is the case but if any residual Wanderlust should still linger in her heart, Sexton would be wise to confine her at home because an elderly cat does not belong on the street.

Although serious questions remain unanswered concerning Daisy's disappearance, she has few options at her advanced years other than to reunite with her original owner. If she has a conscience, Sexton will likewise realize that she does not have any legitimate alternative other than to welcome her back into her life with open arms. 

Not many individuals ever get an opportunity in order to correct their past mistakes and omissions but she has been given a second chance with Daisy. Although she never will be able to make up what has been taken away from her cat over the course of the past eleven years, she sure can try by cherishing her presence and loving her to bits for as long as she lives.

Photos: Sian Sexton.