REXBURG — Rexburg social media star Thor the Cat was rescued late Sunday night after he wandered away from home and went missing for nearly six hours.

Known for his numerous social media videos doing everything from snow skiing to bike riding to boating and being a part of the annual Fourth of July parade, Thor has made a name for himself and developed quite the following.

Last month his owner, Brian Ward, held a well-attended eighth birthday party for Thor. The event was held to highlight animal rescue groups in the community, one of which, the Rexburg Animal Shelter, Ward adopted Thor from.

Word of Thor missing quickly gained traction Sunday night after the Standard Journal placed his story on its Facebook page in hopes of locating the critter believed to be somewhere in the Mill Hollow subdivision.

Around 5 p.m., Gary Forsgren felt something rub up against his leg.

“I’m highly allergic to cats,” he said. “I shooed him off my property.“

At the time Forsgren had been cooking outside.

“It acted like it was hungry,” he said. “It came right up to me. At first, I had a hard time getting it to leave. So, I clapped my hands, and it went south.”

About two hours later, Forsgren got on Facebook.

“There was a deal about this cat,” he said. “I told my wife, ‘The cat I chased off had a bowtie just like the one in this picture.”

Around 8 p.m., Forsgren contacted Ward.

“(I told him), ‘Hey, I seen this cat at 10 after 5,’” Forsgren said. “‘This is where I saw it.’ That narrowed it down where he was looking at it.”

Forsgren’s neighbor Sierra Crawford happened to be walking by and asked Forsgren if he had seen Thor. She had seen Thor around 2 p.m. and 10 minutes after Forsgren called Ward, she also called Ward.

Crawford and her husband, Bennet, continued looking and about four hours later asked the neighboring Furniss family if they had seen a gray and white cat. They had, and Crawford asked to check their garage. She couldn’t see the cat but did hear one hissing at her. Crawford left for a few minutes but then opted to return.

“We went back and asked, ‘Could we look in your garage one more time?’” she said. “So, we did and luckily Thor was on top of a fridge. Bennet went and looked, and said, ‘Yup, that’s him.’”

Crawford called Brian Ward who soon arrived.

“I was only one block away when I got the phone call,” he said.

The Crawfords kept looking because they love cats and felt bad that they could have returned Thor to his family sooner, Crawford said.

“He’s a famous cat,” she said. “We had him in our arms, and we shooed him away. We could have kept him safe and returned him. We knew he was there and that he couldn’t be far. If anybody was going to find him, I felt like we would.”

And they did.

Ward believes Thor wandered away around 11 a.m. on Sunday, but it wasn’t until 4 p.m. that the family realized he had gone missing. Normally, Brian Ward places a tracking collar around Thor’s neck, but because they went to the Madison County Rodeo the night before, Ward removed the tracker fearing it would get dirty or damaged during the event.

The next morning Thor took off without his tracking collar.

“Whenever we go out in the community, I put his clean collar on that makes him look really nice,” Ward said. “I forgot to do the quick change.”

As Ward, his wife Krystal, 9-year-old son Mathew, 6-year-old daughter Ann-Marie, and 11-month-old son Abram started searching for Thor around 4 p.m., Ann-Marie spied two kittens staring out a window screen from a neighboring home.

“She started talking to the kitties,” he said. “She said, ‘If you two kitties see Thor, tell him to go home.’ She said it a couple different times.”

Despite his age, Abram tried calling for Thor, said Krystal Ward.

“He was in the baby carrier as we were walking,” she said. “He was making little kitty noises trying to find Thor. It was adorable.”

After retrieving Thor, Brian Ward took him home and checked Thor for any injuries, which he didn’t have.

“I’ll still take him to the vet,” Ward said. “I gave him a bath. He got plenty dirty. He’s poofy again. His fur is poofy, and he smells good.”

Ward says that from on now, he’ll make sure he keeps Thor’s tracker on his collar. Thor will also be up to being in Rexburg’s Fourth of July parade.

“He will be,” Brian Ward said. “That’s now confirmed again. That was in question. We’ll keep an even closer eye on him heading up to that parade.”