A couple has been reunited with their cat months after he disappeared during a road trip in Spain — and somehow made his way back to within a mile of the family’s home in France.
According to French publication Le Parisien, Patrick and Evelyne Sire were traveling in their camper on Aug. 9, 2025, when their cat, Filou, allegedly jumped out of an open window during a stop at a gas station in Maçanet de la Selva, Spain. The town is located near the French border, roughly 155 miles from the couple’s home in Olonzac, in southern France’s Hérault region.
Patrick told the outlet that the couple didn’t realize Filou was missing until the following morning. He said he returned to the gas station in the days and weeks that followed the feline’s disappearance, but no one in the area had seen the cat.
As months passed with no sightings, the couple began to lose hope. Then, on Jan. 9, they received an unexpected phone call from a resident in Homps, a village less than a mile from their home, who said she had found Filou.
The woman told the couple she had been feeding the cat outdoors since December and became concerned after noticing he was skinny and coughing. She brought him to a local veterinarian, where a microchip scan identified him as Filou, Le Parisien reported.
“Filou traveled all that way to get to us. But how did he do it? Did he follow the highway? Did he go through towns? Did he follow the rivers?” Patrick asked when speaking to France3 News. “We’ll never know.”
Veterinarians treated Filou for dehydration and exhaustion, according to the report, and he has since returned home with his owners.
While the exact route Filou took remains a mystery, the couple said they are relieved to have him back and called his return “nothing short of extraordinary.”
“Microchipping is the safest way to find and keep your pets,” Haylee Bergeland (CPDT-KA, CBCC-KA, RBT), Daily Paws’ pet health and behavior editor, told PEOPLE in a 2021 interview.
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“Unlike collars, chips don’t fall off, and they are ‘on’ at all times. Your collarless dog that goes missing is no longer gone forever,” she added of the perks of microchipping.