My cat Bear had been gone for about 11 months and must have been wandering the neighborhoods. After tons of time and effort trying to search for Bear myself, I wasn’t having much luck. In the meantime, a gentleman who lives in a facility about 5-8 miles away from me was leaving food and water on his porch for all the neighborhood and feral cats. The guy who would feed the feral cats soon enough realized that one of them, Bear, was not like any of the other wild cats. He built Bear’s trust and ended up taking him to a vet clinic to get checked out and to see if he was possibly microchipped. Around 11 months later I get a call from PetLink confirming that my cat is a little weathered, however, he’s still in great health. Bear must have been eating scraps of anything he could find, maybe even lizards and drinking from the rain and sprinkler systems as well as getting food from the guy. Don’t give up hope that your pet will return.