Inner west cat Poppy caught up in an ownership dispute

It is a claw-ful dilemma that will pull at the heart strings of cat-lovers everywhere. A grey tabby named Poppy has become the subject of an ownership dispute between two families in Sydney’s inner west.

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It is a claw-ful dilemma that will pull at the heart strings of cat-lovers everywhere.

A grey tabby named Poppy has become the subject of an ownership dispute between two families in Sydney’s inner west.

The cat has lived with both families at different times and both have experienced the heartbreak of losing him.

As a kitten, Poppy was given to Drummoyne woman Lily Downie in 2010 by her grandfather.

The ownership of Poppy the cat has been disputed.

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Ms Downie said at the time she was only nine-years old and her father had recently died.

“My mum got me a kitten to help me feel better,” she told the Inner West Courier.

“My pop found a stray cat that had kittens under a bed. He said we could take one and that is how we got Poppy. He was so tiny, he was just a two-week old kitten.”

But when the family moved away from their home in Hancock St, Rozelle to be closer to the city the cat went missing.

Poppy with Lily Downie.

Poppy turned up near another woman’s family home in the same suburb looking like a stray more than two years ago.

“He was starving and had dermatitis, he had lost fur on his back — he was in a state” she said.

Poppy at the Rozelle woman’ home.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, took the cat to the vet and had his microchip checked to see if she could find an owner but the details were out of date and no-one could be contacted.

“We went through all the channels to find the owners,” she said.

Late last year, the cat which had been renamed and become a much-loved member of the family disappeared.

The family had microchipped him with their details and spent hundreds of dollars on vet bills.

“I paid $1000 to get his teeth cleaned (before he went missing),” the woman said.

Meanwhile, Ms Downie had been told by a friend that her cat had been spotted in Rozelle.

She asked the residents near her old home to keep a look out for the cat and then got a call.

Ms Downie said a woman called her. “’Hey are you still looking for your cat? I think I have caught him,” and she went to collect him.

The kitty relaxing outside the Rozelle woman’s home.

Ms Downie entered a photo of Poppy in the Inner West Courier’s Meow 100 of NSW’s most powerful and loved cats last week and talked about how relieved she was to be reunited with the kitty more than two and a half years after he went missing.

A photo of the grey tabby featured on the newspaper’s front page on Tuesday.

The other woman from Rozelle who had been caring for Poppy for years spotted the cat, which she thought may have died, in the newspaper and immediately recognised him.

She was deeply upset and wants to bring the cat home to her family where she said he was always very happy.

“He never wandered and he always came home,” the woman said.

The woman said the cat also required monthly medication for his dermatitis.

However, Poppy‘s first owner say the cat is her pet.

The Rozelle woman said she had registration papers for the cat and he was registered in her name. The Rozelle woman has been making attempts to contact Ms Downie.

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