"My heart tells me he's there" Owner drives 600 kilometers every week to look for cat
Nero the cat has been missing from Erlangen in Germany since mid-July 2024. His owners have been tirelessly searching for him ever since - driving 600 kilometers every week in the hope of his return.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Rafael Klajnszmit and his wife Monika have been desperately searching for their lost cat Nero since July 2024.
- The pet disappeared during a stopover in Erlangen, Germany, when he jumped out of the transport box.
- Now the Klajnszmit couple drive 600 kilometers every weekend to look for their cat.
There has been no sign of Nero the cat since mid-July 2024. Since then, Rafael Klajnszmit (53) and his wife Monika (53) have been searching for their pet.
He disappeared when Klajnszmit was on his way by car from his home in Eschwege in Hesse to Bavaria to visit his wife in rehab. The two tomcats Nero and Tommy were along for the ride.
During a stopover in the city of Erlangen, when he wanted to get the cats out of the car, Nero jumped out of the cat box and ran away. The cat has been missing ever since.
Instead of visiting his wife, Klajnszmit then searched for his cat all over Erlangen. He has not stopped to this day: Every weekend he drives 600 kilometers there and back in the hope of finding Nero after all.
"Nero is shy of people
"I hope every day that we will find him. My heart tells me that Nero is there somewhere," the 53-year-old tells RTL. "We lead two lives: Monday to Friday we work, at the weekend we lead a different life and look for Nero. You can hardly sleep."
The Klajnszmit couple have already distributed thousands of posters and flyers in Erlangen. They search social media and have local helpers in Erlangen who follow up on tips if they are not there during the week.
The difficulty: three-year-old Nero is a black cat with a small black spot. So there are many free-roaming cats that look like him
However, this has already enabled the couple to rescue a few other cats. Like Nero, they are chipped and registered with the animal registry. This allowed them to be identified and returned to their owners.
"Nero is shy of people. I can well imagine that he immediately went into hiding," says Rafael Klajnszmit to RTL. "The kilometers you drive, the fact that you sometimes have to sleep in the car, the costs: it doesn't matter." For the Klajnszmit couple, all that matters is that their cat Nero comes home soon.