Stunned couple thought they'd cremated 19-year-old Amigo... only for their real pet to turn up ALIVE two weeks later
John and Margaret Ross were 'absolutely devastated' when they found what they thought was their missing cat lying dead in the road, before sending him for cremation.
But two weeks later the couple from Hackney, east London, were stunned to receive a phone call from a vet who said their 19-year-old feline Amigo had been discovered alive and well.
Mr and Mrs Ross, both 73, immediately realised that they had cremated somebody else’s pet cat - which looked identical to their own white, black and tan Maine Coon.
Retired barrister Mr Ross said: ‘It was exactly the same cat as ours, same colour, same everything. It had been badly injured and was definitely dead. We picked him up and took him home.
‘We said “this is our cat, he has been killed, can we have him cremated?” We didn’t check the microchip. We thought there was no point checking the chip of our dead cat.’
The couple, married for 52 years, asked a vet to send the cat to the Cambridge Pet Crematorium in Thriplow Heath, Hertfordshire, on January 17 - which was 12 days after he vanished.
But last Tuesday - two weeks after paying £130 for the cremation - they received a phone call from the Wanstead Veterinary Hospital in east London to say their cat of 15 years was safe and well.
Mr Ross said: ‘Three weeks later we got a call from the veterinary hospital to say they found Amigo but I said “we’ve cremated him, it can’t be”. We shot off to the hospital and there was Amigo.
‘We said “Is he completely deaf? Has he got cysts on his back?” The vet said “yes”, and we knew he was our Amigo. We couldn’t believe we got him back.
'But then it struck, we’d cremated the wrong cat. We rung the crematorium and said if somebody wants the ashes of that cat then please give them the ashes.’
Mrs Ross, a retired English lecturer, added: ‘We never suspected it might be somebody else’s cat - if it had been an ordinary moggy then maybe, but Maine Coons are really quite rare. It had been a messy accident but it had the same white paws and white fluff as ours.’
A crematorium spokesman said the ashes of the unidentified cat would be scattered in its gardens.
