CAT lover Brian Bowes claims he is able to find lost pets using a sat nav, a photograph and a crystal pendulum.

The father-of-two from Shotley Bridge, near Consett, is regularly contacted by worried owners asking for help and says the process has been proven to work around 30 times.

“People contact me through Facebook, and send me a picture of their lost cat, its name and the area where it went missing," he explained.

“I keep a picture of the cat on the laptop next to me with a sat nav map on my phone.”

‘Dowsing’ is the dangling of a pendulum and using the direction in which it moves to find a lost object.

Mr Bowes added: “First I have to clear my head of absolutely everything so my mind is completely empty.

“Then I hold the pendulum above the map on my phone and ask questions, such as: 'Is the cat alive? Is it injured? Is it being kept in a house?' The pendulum will move clockwise for yes and anti-clockwise for no.

“When I ask it to show me where the cat is, the pendulum will then sway to a certain area on the map.

''I keep zooming in on the area until I can zoom in no more and I get to a street name. In total it usually takes about half an hour for me to find where the cat might be, and I contact the owner to let them know.

“I have done it thirty times, for some owners I've done it once or twice, and for others I have done it for them many times.

“Where I've been successful I usually get within 50 metres of where the cat was found, which is good considering I only started to do this seriously a few months ago.”