Lost cat reunited with owner after missing for 16 years

By Faye Mayern

A missing cat that was presumed stolen has been finally reunited with her shocked owner - sixteen years after disappearing.

Sunshine, a pedigree Bengal, disappeared from owner Carl Pullen's garden in 2009 when she was just two-and-a-half years old.

The feline was presumed stolen by her owner as the breed can be sold for up to $1.7k and she was not recovered despite Carl's appeals for help.

Pullen, 51, moved away from Welwyn Garden City in Herts the following year - but was left shocked on March 24 to hear Sunshine had been found.

He got a phone call from a veterinary surgeon from Welwyn saying that his cat had been handed in.

Now 19 years old, Sunshine has been reunited with her family for the last years of her life.

The technical project manager said: "The vet asked if I had a cat called Sunshine - she'd been handed in as a stray.

"I'd always figured she'd been stolen. I'd put up posters and appealed to find her, and she was microchipped.

"She went out one day and never came back.

"It's a good thing I never changed my phone number in all these years.

"She wasn't in a great way when I picked her up from the vets.

"She was underweight, her claws hadn't been clipped and she had bad kidneys.

"Since she's been home, Sunshine has had some teeth taken out and medication to perk her up a bit - she's looking a lot better."

Pullen had owned Sunshine since the end of 2006 when she was six months old.

Two and a half years later, in the summer of 2009, she went out into the garden of his home and was not seen again by Pullen for 16 years.

Since then, Pullen has lived in Switzerland, Bishop's Stortford in Herts and now resides in the Essex village of Takeley.

Pullen added: "She's nineteen and a half years old which is 92 in cat years.

"I don't think she's been a stray all this time - maybe just in the last few months.

"We thought we wouldn't see her again, but she's back home now."