CATS famously have nine lives, but Andy the guinea pig has proved he is just as lucky.

The ginger pet was discovered far from his natural habitat, in a landfill skip at a rubbish dump in Stanton Harcourt.

Oxfordshire County Council workers spotted him cowering in the corner as they were closing up for the night and immediately launched a rescue operation.

Retired Inland Revenue worker Janet Witcomb, who had been running a compost workshop at the Dix Pit site, offered to take the petrified pet home.

“He was frightened and a bit wet and soggy,” she said.

“It was just lucky one of the men noticed him or he would have landfill dumped on him.”

Mrs Witcomb, 62, from Long Hanborough, volunteered to take him home – in a recycled cardboard box, naturally – and has named him Andy, after the council worker who first spotted him.

“We have put him in a cat travelling basket and he is in the lounge with us,” she said.

“We are trying to find a run for him so he can get outside.”

Now she is trying to solve the riddle of how he ended up in the rubbish in the first place.

“My husband thinks someone dumped him but I think he might have just got into some rubbish and somebody somewhere is thinking ‘where has my guinea pig got to?’” she said.

“Several people have offered him a home but I have said they can’t have him yet.”

Mrs Witcomb is keen to find his owners before offering him to a new home.

If Andy is your pet, please contact the Oxford Mail on 01865 425425.

  • Other fortunate furry friends

    ANDY the guinea pig joins a list of fortunate furry friends who have turned up in Oxfordshire.

Bob the kitten went missing from his garden in Northampton in May 2010, but turned up two weeks, and 60 miles, later in Stanford in the Vale.

And Archie the Poodle’s walkabout was even longer.

He vanished without trace from his garden in Heybridge, Essex, in July 2009. And was discovered 549 days later in Abingdon Road, Oxford, more than 100 miles from where he went missing.