Cosmo the cat is back.
Exactly 200 days since the much-loved moggy disappeared from Quarry Rd, owner Jess McLean got the phone call she had nearly given up on.
Cosmo had been found 3km away in Latter St.
He had been hit by a car near the fire station, but was alive, and after emergency surgery on his jaw he was back in the arms of his mum — 1kg lighter, but with a full stomach on the day he was found.
Miss McLean had been searching ‘‘black cat’’ on Trade Me for the last six months, posting on Facebook groups and offering rewards for Cosmo’s safe return, or even just information about what had happened to him.
The community rallied, and potential sightings flooded in — there are a lot of black cats in Timaru, and at one point Miss McLean was mapping out the movements of about 30 of them.
But none appeared to be Cosmo.
She had been having a rough month when her beloved boy went missing.
Her mother died unexpectedly in March, and as Miss McLean had moved back to Timaru temporarily to help support her father, she had brought her two cats Cosmo and Astro with her.
The furry duo had visited plenty of times before, and were well schooled in the area and knew how to get back to the house.
However, renovations on her parents’ house were well under way, and there was a lot of grief and sadness in the air.
Amid it all, Cosmo disappeared.
She said she thought a lot of the grief — of losing her mum so suddenly — had been channelled into finding Cosmo.
‘‘I couldn’t save my mum, but I could save him.’’
Timaru Family Vets’ receptionist Dani Rhodes said a client had arrived at the vet clinic with pets in the car ready for an appointment when they alerted the clinic to a cat who had just been hit down the road.
A vet nurse rushed down to bring him in to the clinic.
Ms Rhodes said when she checked for his details she was ‘‘so excited’’ to see the cat had been microchipped.
When she called to alert Cosmo’s owner about him being at the clinic, ‘‘the relief in her voice, I nearly cried’’, she said.
Miss McLean was living in Dunedin, but she had included her father’s Timaru address on the microchip.
Ms Rhodes said if anyone was feeding an extra cat, they could call up and book an appointment to see if the cat was chipped, as it was a quick and free procedure.
The vet clinic had made Miss McLean welcome, letting her sit with Cosmo for most of the day and ensuring she was being looked after with offerings of banana loaf.
She planned to leave Timaru on Tuesday afternoon and get him safely settled back into life in Dunedin.
