Twenty-six-year-old Katie Alsop of Northampton, England was worried sick when her kitty, named Peanut,ran out the door. But by thinking outside the box, Alsop was able to reunite with her beloved pet – with the help of a stranger!
Knowing that Peanut’s photo would spread further in cyberspace than on neighborhood posters, Alsop decided to use the popular dating app Tinder, instead.
“I bought a premium membership, put on a ‘boost’ to get more attention and uploaded a missing poster with a reward and my number, plus a photo of me and the cat for sympathy,” Alsop said in a story by HuffPost UK.
Finding her companion was especially urgent because a notorious cat killer lurks in the area. But thankfully, the “dating profile” worked. Peanut’s picture got hundreds of “matches,” but the real tip, from a man named Charlie, came a mere half hour after posting the picture.
“Charlie said he saw my Tinder profile, looked out of his window, and the cat was in his garden! I was so happy he hadn’t been taken by the killer,” she said in the story.
But Peanut didn’t make it easy for his poor, worried human! He fled the garden – but now Alsop and her new friend knew where to find him.
“Charlie was literally scaling 8ft fences and jumping into wasteland, it was like an action film,” she said.
As the spooked kitty ran near a busy road, the two decided to stop chasing him. Instead, Alsop went about sprinkling used kitty litter in the area, so Peanut could track his own scent. He wasn’t buying it though, so the cat mom pulled out all the stops and attempted to lure him in by scattering her own clothing, along with tuna, near where he was last seen.
Amazingly, it worked! Early in the morning, Alsop awoke to the sound of meows from her beloved Peanut, who was outside her home.
“I would never have known where to search for Peanut without using Tinder, and really don’t think he would have found his way home on his own,” she told HuffPost UK, then added, “He’s never going out again.”
(h/t: HuffPost UK)