A CAT turned up alive and well at home — four days after his family thought they had cremated him.
Nicci Knight, 43, had been on holiday when neighbours got in touch to say her pet Ted had drowned in a garden pond.
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They showed the distraught mum of four the body using a doorbell camera to confirm it was him.
Nicci got her cat sitter Elise Garbutt to arrange for Ted to be picked up by a pet crematorium.
She said: “It was such a shock. They were holding what I thought was Ted. It was awful. There was nothing we could do about it and it really affected the holiday.”
The family continued their break while four days later, Elise went round to their home in Newby, North Yorks, to feed Ted’s sister Moosh.
Ted then bounded through the cat flap as if nothing had happened — showing that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated.
Childcare boss Nicci said: “Elise called us to say: ‘You’re not going to believe this — Ted’s just walked in!’”
Elise, 30, said of the moment she saw Ted: “I was in total shock, I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was seeing a cat ghost.”
Nicci contacted the crematorium, Heavenly Pets, but they had already cremated the lookalike mog that had almost identical black and white markings to Ted.
She added: “It was a rollercoaster of emotions. We were heartbroken to be told Ted had died and it cast a real shadow over the holiday.
“But then we were delighted to hear the good news. One minute we were devastated, then we were elated, but still sad for the cat which did drown. It was just crazy.”
Nicci paid £130 for the mystery cat to be cremated and its ashes are now in a plastic box marked “Not dead Ted” at their house.
It was not wearing a collar and Nicci is now trying to find its owners through social media appeals.
