Owner Liz Gooch said they had always wondered what happened to Sofia.

Years after mysteriously disappearing into the bush with a hostile moggy, Sofia the black cat is back home.

New Plymouth woman Liz Gooch last saw her little cat in May 2013 when it went for a walk with the family's ginger cat, Tiger, which had never particularly warmed to its black offsider.

"We always joked the big ginger cat's taken her for a walk in the bush and lost her," Gooch said.



And while that hypothesis has not yet been disproved the Goochs' was reunited with Sofia earlier this month when it was handed into New Plymouth's Vets4Pets as a stray.



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GRANT MATTHEW/Fairfax NZ Sofia the black cat has been reunited with its owners 2.5 years after going missing.

After scanning it for a microchip they contacted Gooch, who had coincidentally been wondering once more where Sofia was after spotting a black cat while out walking their dog Buddy.

"It was like, it was bizarre. [The vet] Alex rang and said 'listen we just wanted you to know we've got Sofia here'. I went – no, start again."

"We reckon she's been living fairly rough. She used to be big mates with the dog but she's become fairly aggressive since then.

Supplied Sofia and family dog Buddy before she went missing in May 2013.

"I can't understand why nobody's picked her up before now."

It wasn't the first time Sofia had found herself far from home.

Gooch had found Sofia crying underneath their Bell Block house in August 2011. After nobody claimed her, they made her part of the family and had her both spayed and microchipped.

GRANT MATTHEW/FAIRFAX NZ Sofia is now back in Bell Block, re-growing her hair and trying to get along with the other family cat, Tiger.

Vets4Pets director Alex Hicks said it was only because of the microchip they were able to track down Gooch so easily.

"It came as a bit of a shock to the owners, who said their cat had been missing for something like two years – it actually turned out to be around two and a half years."

The cat had "minor health concerns" but had been checked out and was set up to have regular visits to monitor her in the meantime, Hicks said.

It was taking some time for Sofia to readjust to the house, but she now picked fights with Buddy and Tiger rather than running out of the room, Gooch said.