A MISSING cat who needed an urgent operation has been found and is now back safe with his family.

Ambrose, a ten-month old silver- haired tabby, was reunited with his owner Rachael Higgins, 14, from Morley, in Teesdale, County Durham, following an appeal in The Northern Echo.

Ambrose went missing last week after he escaped from his box outside the Castle Vets surgery, in St Helen Auckland.

He was on his way to Barnard Castle for an operation. Without it, he could have died.

Rachael's mother, Vanessa, said: "I'd put some notices through some doors and people had seen it in the newspaper and they managed to find him in some allotments behind the vets.

"We were very lucky, he was a lot thinner and very hungry and very dehydrated.

"But now it's like he has never been away. He got in and curled himself up in front of the coal fire," she said.

"Rachael's just chuffed to bits."