THE CAT BURGLAR!
Terrif ied pet store staff who feared criminal gang had set off alarm in the middle of the night catch culprit napping...
WHEN the alarm went off in the middle of the night, staff were terrified their shop was being raided by criminals.
Woken at 2am after the store’s motion sensor was activated, the manager and deputy manager hurried to their branch of Pets At Home.
And as soon as they heard a wailing cry the minute they entered the Oban shop, they feared the worst.
But to their relief, the intruder turned out not to be a vicious thief – but a slightly startled cat burglar.
For the culprit was Monty, a local pet who had slipped into the shop during the day then fallen asleep out of sight.
Once the 11-year-old tabby woke up, he wandered around the deserted store, triggering the alarm.
And when The Scottish Mail on Sunday tracked down Monty’s owner, she was unaware her pet had sparked the nighttime drama – but not entirely surprised.
She said Monty, a rescued stray, was fond of wandering all over Oban and had been spotted at various times on the counter of a newsagent, in Tesco, in Homebase, in the Wetherspoons pub, at the police station, at the train station, in the CalMac ferry office and even in the rear of the postman’s van.
The staff of the Pets At Home store said Monty was a popular regular visitor but had never previously tried to stay the night there.
Deputy manager Hazel Kelso, who was called out at 2am, recalled: ‘We were quite frightened. We came in the door and there was this wailing, so we became more frightened.’
She said Monty ‘has been coming in for a few years, adding: ‘He comes in and has a sleep in the cat beds, or plays with his own catnip toy, and goes out again. We do check for him, but we must have missed him.
‘He must have been sleeping somewhere when the store closed and then, about 1.45am, that was him getting up, then the alarm went off, so he got his full eight hours’ sleep, but we didn’t.’
When The Scottish Mail on Sunday called at the shop last Sunday we found Monty having a nap in a bed on a shelf. A call to his owner, Marie Porter, from Oban, revealed that she knew nothing about the latest antics of her adventureloving cat-about-town.
Mrs Porter and her husband got Monty as a four-year-old.
She said: ‘We knew he was a wanderer. He is an ex-stray, which probably explains a lot.
‘He can’t stand being trapped so we have a cat flap. He is just an outdoor cat, he goes off exploring and sleeps quite happily wherever he ends up.’
She added: ‘He gets up to all these adventures when, as far as we were aware, he was in the house.’
The couple, who are marine scientists, have kitted Monty out with a motion tracker which has highlighted his movements all over their local town. Mrs Porter said: ‘He has been to the police station, he goes to the Kelvin Hotel, to the post office and the ferry terminal.
‘He goes to the train station, where I believe they check to make sure he is not on the train.
‘He goes to Wetherspoons and in the summer he spends a lot of time begging for food off tourists at the Seafood Hut, although he gets fed at home.
‘Monty also has a habit of getting into people’s cars and has even been pictured sitting happily in a postal delivery van.
‘I get texts about him and my husband gets texts about him, saying: “Is your cat lost?” My husband just says: “If he is in Oban, he is fine”.’
‘He got his eight hours’ sleep but we didn’t’