A four-year-old cat who was left home alone for more than a month after her owner was jailed has been rehomed ahead of the holidays.
Luna survived on dried pasta and a dripping tap for five weeks after her owner was taken to Durham Prison.
Authorities only learned about her plight when they overheard her owner mentioning how his cat had been left alone in his home.
The warden called the local RSPCA in Middlesborough, who quickly went to the property and gained entry from the landlord.
They found Luna hiding under piles of rubbish with a crisp packet on her head, covered in dirt and seriously underweight.
She was taken to an RSPCA centre following her rescue in March and made a full recovery.
Luna has since made a full recovery and has been rehomed in time for Christmas. But the RSPCA said the conditions in which they found her were ‘absolutely filthy’.
RSPCA inspector Garry Palmer said: ‘It was filthy inside with signs of human excrement on the floor. We found Luna curled up, stuck under a chair in a void with a crisp packet on her head.
‘She’d survived by drinking from a tap which was dripping in the kitchen sink and possibly water from the toilet. It looked like she’d eaten packets of dried pasta and other food which she’d scavenged from a cupboard.
‘When we got in and started looking around I really did think we were going to find her dead body, so it was incredible to find Luna alive after so many weeks.’
Mr Palmer said despite the horrible conditions she had been in, Luna was in relatively okay shape and she put on weight quickly when she was taken into care.
He added: ‘If it hadn’t been for the prison warden passing the information on to us and the tap dripping in the kitchen she wouldn’t have got out of that house alive, so in that sense, she was a very ‘lucky’ cat.’
Ahead of the holidays, Luna was adopted after her new owner spotted her story on the RSPCA’s website.
Marian, Luna’s new owner, had previously lost her last cat when it fell ill.
She said: ‘It said she was being overlooked and was now the longest-staying cat so I knew I had to adopt her. When I heard about what had happened it seemed even more of a reason to give her a good home.
‘I’m just so happy to have adopted Luna so she can have the best life ever. She loves cuddling up next to me, although she normally doesn’t sit still for very long.
‘She’s a strong-willed character and knows exactly what she wants. I think that’s probably why she survived on her own for as long as she did, she really wanted to live. It upsets me when I think about her past and how long she’d been on her own in those terrible conditions but she’s safe now and being loved and spoiled rotten.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
