A CAT owner who feared the worst when her pet went missing for almost a month was amazed when he turned up in a quarry 25 miles away.

Sophie Brewer, from Dorchester, is baffled as to how Tigger ended up at the site in Swanage.

She was reunited with her beloved pet because he was electronically tagged.

A man who discovered the three-year-old silver tabby hiding in a crate took him to a vet who read Sophie’s details from the microchip.

Now Sophie is urging others to get their pets electronically tagged.

Sophie, 27, said Tigger was missing for three and a half weeks before she heard he had been found.

She said: “I put posters up everywhere, visited animal rescue centres, looked at websites and told the police and the council.

“I thought someone had taken him but it was also in my mind that he had been knocked over.”

Sophie, a primary school teacher, added: “Then out of the blue I receive a phone call from a vet in Swanage saying they had Tigger.

“I couldn’t believe it.”

She explained that a member of the Bissett family who works in the quarry discovered Tigger and took him to his parents’ home before he was taken to the vets.

Sophie said: “The people who took him in were lovely and I am so grateful to them.

“But I have no idea how he came to be so far away.

“He may have hitched a lift in a van or was taken by somebody and then dumped.”