It’s a cat nav catastrophe!Tough Cookie turns up in Spen – after 271 mile journey

The cute kitty turned up at the back door of the Gomersal Park Hotel, and the caring staff took pity on it and gave it a few tasty treats.

The moggy was so impressed by the gourmet food that it came back day after day, until one of the members of staff, Claire Brogden, decided to take it to the vets.

The hotel’s head of marketing Keith Joplin said: “She thought there might be a chance the cat was chipped which would tell them who the owners were, and she was staggered to find out they were from Swansea – 271 miles away!

“The vet contacted them and apparently the cat, Cookie, had gone missing on December 29.

“Goodness knows how on earth it got here, but one theory is that it might have hitched a lift with the laundry van.

“The hotel has its laundry cleaned in Cardiff, so it could have jumped in while they were loading the van, travelled all the way up north, and then leapt out again once it got to Gomersal.”

However the story had a purrfect ending, as the owners, Andrew and Samantha Buchanan, made the 10-hour round trip from Wales yesterday to be reunited with their intrepid moggy.

Andrew said: “We’ve been out looking for her every day, we weren’t a complete family without her. We had told the children, Lucy and Abigail, that Cookie was being looked after, but little did we know she was being looked after in a hotel in West Yorkshire!

“On Wednesday we got a call from a vet to say Cookie had been found. I thought ‘brilliant!’ and then the vet said she was in West Yorkshire!

“Abigail had told her teacher her cat had gone missing and she’d handed out flyers and posters all round town. On Friday [today] the school has a ‘show and tell’ and she’s going to tell the big story of how she got her cat back.”

l To watch a video of Cookie the cat being reunited with her delighted owners, go to www.spenboroughguardian.co.uk.