Kitten lost in Belgium brought home months later

"Getting Mancs back was a Christmas and also a fantastic birthday present for my daughter."

Rudolf Szentimrey, who lives in Basingstoke, Hampshire, embarked on a car trip to Hungary with his wife Anita, seven-year-old daughter Noemi and kitten Mancs in August.

Despite being a calm pet, Mancs escaped while the family had stopped for a break in Belgium in the middle of the night.

After months of posts on Facebook and help from kind strangers, they had a "really emotional" reunion with "the little cat that just brought everyone together".

"On 22 August we set off, everything was fine, and the idea behind taking the cat on our holiday is because we just simply didn't want to leave him for about three weeks behind," Szentimrey said.

Szentimrey said they had stopped for a break at about 02:00 BST.

"He was a fantastic little boy, my wife put the harness on" the dad said.

"He just got scared and then, like a bullet, he just ran away in that car park."

Mancs managed to escape through a hole in the surrounding fence and did not turn back despite the family calling him.

Szentimrey managed to get to Mancs after hours of walking through "a jungle" of "stinging nettles almost two metres high and brambles just under that".

"That was the moment he actually quite seriously scratched me - I still got the scar, it was surprisingly deep, surprisingly painful and he also beat me a little bit.

They gave up the chase at about 07:30 BST.

He added that for the rest of the trip, "no one was really talking and everybody was in tears".

Mancs was reported as lost but the family started posting on Facebook groups and and got in touch with Belgian non-profit rescuing and rehoming service Cattitude.

"They went to the spot, set up traps, we left food behind for him and also cat litter."

Szentimrey said there had been "hundreds of posters about him around the surrounding area".

Mancs was noticed in a "very quiet little village" called Veltem-Beisem where the locals leave free food for stray animals.

The people who found him had microchip reader and contacted Cattitude, who collected him and called the family with the good news.

"My daughter started to scream and shout, she actually had a couple of tears in her eyes," Szentimrey said.

Mancs was placed with a foster family for about a week before his owners reunited with him.

"That was actually really emotional - I let my daughter go first, Mancs is actually hers so that's why I felt really bad personally after this whole situation.

"He recognised us, he was still remembering us and he immediately started to wander around our legs."

He added that it "beautifully describes the importance of the microchip".

You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.