A CAT that was missing for more than ten years has been found and reunited with its owner.

Male cat, Izzy was found by chance and reunited with his owner thanks to his updated microchip.

He was discovered in the Hightown area of Ringwood.

Cats protection volunteer Stella Dipinto, who managed Izzy’s case explained what happened to him.

She said: “There's a lovely lady, the finder, called Theresa Baker. And I've helped her previously with a feral cat that she's got already.

“So she feeds the feral cat that she's got outside and then Izzy just started coming to her for food and she sort of spotted that this new cat that was arriving, looking a bit old and worse for wear.

“So she called me and Cats Protection did a post asking if anyone recognised him but nobody came forward unfortunately.

“Theresa was determined to gain the cat's trust, which she did. She was feeding it every day and trying to make friends.

“She first reported the cat to Cats Protection in April, so it's taken her quite a few months to really win this cat over and she got to the point where she could pick Izzy up and give him a good fuss.

“So she then rang me and said, ‘can I borrow a microchip scanner? I can get near this cat now’, so of course I dropped one round.

Read more: Cat from Weymouth found after going missing 10 years ago

“We scanned the cat and did a microchip look up and on the microchip it said that the cat was reported missing 10 years ago, back in 2012, which was pretty amazing.”

"I went and knocked on the address not knowing whether the lady was going to be there or not because 10 years is a long time and she could have easily moved but she answered the door.

“She was in great shock when I said we found Izzy and she was in total shock and disbelief.

“I put the owner in touch with Theresa and between them they've agreed that Izzy's probably happiest staying with Therea because he's absolutely spoilt rotten there and he's got to really love her and he knows the area."

Read more: Mystery of cat found 25 miles from Dorchester home

Theresa said: "I'm his owner now, after everything that happened I said that I would take him on because apparently he's 18 and I think the trauma of having to live wild for 10 years and now for him to be as he is now, sleep in our sitting room next to the fire, I thought would be a lot for him to move again and everybody agreed to that."

When Izzy went missing his brother Ozzy went missing too and has yet to be found.

Teresa said: “The previous owners think that they were both stolen and then when they found out maybe that they were neutered, they dumped them."

Stella wants to remind people to keep their pet chips up to date.

She said: “It's all thanks to the person keeping their monthly chip details up to date, she'd actually moved house, but she phoned up the chip company when she moved and changed the address, which is a good job she did, because obviously I'd had real trouble finding her if she hadn't updated the chip details.

“It hopefully gives other people hope if their cat's missing that they will find them eventually.”