It was a sad day for Penny Scutt and her family when their beloved pet cat Tim went missing after hitching a ride to the tip.
But happy tears were shed on Sunday as after almost two months of him being gone, they were reunited.
The 4-year-old cat's owners were in the process of moving from their Otūmoetai property and did not notice there was a stowaway when they took some rubbish to the Maleme St Transfer Station.
Scutt and the family had been searching for weeks and looked into all the reports and mentions of cats people had seen that looked like him.