Missing Portsmouth cat Alfie returns home after five-hour RSPCA rescue op

Alfie had been reported missing in 2022, but was happily living life in North End, being fed regularly by neighbours.

But in Madeira Road on Sunday, March 15, the RSPCA had to be called out after the feline ended up stuck in a narrow 10cm gap between two houses.

What followed was a five-hour rescue operation to free Alfie, with both the RSPCA and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service working to get him out. When they couldn’t free him, the Lighthouse 24/7 A&E Pet Hospital was also called out to assist. Free-of-charge, vet Rob Lowe came up with the plan that eventually completed the rescue op.

Animal rescue officer Morgan Ellison said: “We tried for hours to free the cat; we tried prising sticks underneath him to support his weight while pulling with the grasper but due to the rubble underneath we couldn’t get enough purchase.

“Firefighters devised a pulley system to try to get a rope around his chest but there wasn’t space around him to get it over his hips.

“After about five hours of trying and as the light was disappearing, we sought advice from our colleagues who specialise in remote sedation and contacted a local vet to come and sedate the cat so we could try to pull him out more firmly, without risking him panicking and struggling.”

Once finally freed, the RSPCA checked Alfie’s microchip and discovered he had been reported missing four years earlier. He was then reunited with his owner, Mandy Davis.

She said: “Alfie went missing in July 2022; it was the week after we moved house. We weren’t letting him out but he managed to squeeze through a tiny gap in a window that had been left slightly ajar and that was it, he was gone.

“I couldn’t quite believe it when the RSPCA called to tell me they had him, and he’d been found just two roads away from our house. It still feels like a bit of a blur; I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see him again.

“We’re all over-the-moon to have him home. He spends most of his time curled up on my daughter, Elizabeth’s, bed. It’s like he never left.”