A GRATEFUL owner has been reunited with his cats after they hitched a ride across Dorchester.

Mark Homewood launched a desperate search for his beloved pets after they went missing last week.

He believed the pair, who were only 10-months-old and had only been out on their own once before, were in the vicinity of his Friary Hill home.

However, little did Mark know that Ziva and Belle had actually hitched a ride in the engine bay of a car before hopping out near his place of work at the town’s Tesco supermarket.

Mark, 28, was informed by the motorist of his moggies’ hitchhiking exploits and eventually they were found, six days after they first went missing.

He said: “The bloke who rang me said he had seen two cats coming out of his car and his father went down looking for them.”

Mark said Ziva was found at the L of a Car dealership just up from Tesco on Weymouth Avenue but at first there was no sign of Belle.

He said he took Ziva to the vets and returned with his parents and found Belle nearby, outside Currys.

Mark said that, considering their ordeals, the two cats were remarkably unscathed.

He said: “The only thing they had was one ripped paw on Belle and that was it, which is a miracle considering they had both just jumped in someone’s engine.

“I expected them to have gone but where they are not used to having such a big territory to roam they obviously stuck near to where they got dropped off.

“The vet told us to keep them in for a month while they get back to a normal routine but to be honest they don’t look phased by anything at all.

“I just feel so lucky.

“I didn’t think I was going to see them again.”

The driver of the car, who asked not to be named, said he had been driving his new vehicle for around 10 or 15 minutes when he noticed a strange smell, so he stopped at Tesco and checked under the bonnet.

He said: “I lifted it up and there were two cats underneath the bonnet.

“I shut the bonnet at first then when I lifted it up again they both looked up and ran off.”

The confused motorist said he contacted the police to inform them, but it wasn’t until he had been away for the weekend and came back that he saw a poster of the missing cats that Mr Homewood had put up.

He rang Mr Homewood and his dad also later went to Tesco to look for them and heard what he thought was a cat.

Mr Homewood found Ziva by L of a Car before eventually also finding Belle.