DODGER the cat’s wandering days are over just months after he shot to worldwide fame for his exploits.

His distraught owner Fee Jeanes has had to have the Bridport moggy put down after he became ill with a tumour.

Dodger shot to fame after tales of his antics catching the buses around Dorset and Devon first appeared in the Bridport News.

He featured in papers, on TV and in websites worldwide as well as Chat magazine. Pet food company Whiskas even sent him a big parcel of goodies.

Fee, whose children are Jack, Emily and William, said: “It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make.

“I cancelled it twice.

“The family are in tears.

“Poor old Dodger, it is very sad.”

Fee, of West Street, Bridport, added: “Dodger had a good life. He was a brilliant cat and was spoilt rotten.

“Everyone at Bredy Vets has been brilliant all the way through this.

“I know a lot of people are going to be very disappointed and saddened that Dodger has gone.”

Dodger shot to stardom after living up to his namesake, the Artful Dodger, by catching scraps of food and free bus trips around Dorset at the bus station in Bridport.

He used to hop on and off buses, sit on passengers’ laps as they waited and devour old sandwiches left in the station.

Fee said that she used to hear from people all the time asking after Dodger or telling of their encounters with him.

She said one touching story was from a woman who was poorly and going to Exeter on the bus for a hospital appointment but had her day made when the moggy came and sat on her lap.

Fee said that she took Dodger to the vet’s with a stomach tumour before Christmas before finally having to make the heartbreaking decision to put him down.

She said that he was also may have been losing his mental faculties as she was getting calls five or six times a day reporting him elsewhere in town other than his usual haunt of the bus station.

She was worried that he may get run over or cause a car accident.

Fee, who has put a notice up at the bus station, said: “He made a lot of people happy. The response to him was amazing.”

Dodger has been buried in a special part of the family’s garden where his memory will be kept alive.