By Scott MacLeod
Whinging Ginge, star of television ads and dramas seen around the world, has disappeared.
Ginge had just finished starring as a scuba-diving cat for the Ihug Internet commercial when he scarpered from his Pukekohe home.
His owner, Michelle Hicks, has spent a month knocking on doors and posting advertisements to
try to find her 7-year-old cat, who earns her up to $400 a day.
Ginge has starred in 25 shoots in his three-year career. He is probably best known as the Go-Cat cat and has also worked for Arnotts and the TAB, as the back-up cat for a TAB Pools ad.
He has been seen overseas in television shows such as Xena and Hercules, and starred in an American pet-food ad for Purina Cat Chow.
Miss Hicks said Ginge was a friendly and treasured family member. "I hand-raised him from a tiny baby, she said. "It makes me very upset to think about him."
She said Ginge might have run away from his new Glade North home to the family's old home at Orere Pt, in the Firth of Thames. He had no collar, but was trained to socialise and leap up to grab food without using his claws.
The distinctive cat had a "stunning physique" for his age and looked only four years old. He got the tag "whinging" because he cried back when spoken to.
