A 21-YEAR-OLD moggie used up another of his nine lives when he was rescued from a house fire on Monday morning.

Owner Sheila Drinkwater was in her Massey Brook Lane home in Lymm when her fridge freezer burst into flames because of an electrical fault.

Not able to reach the fire, she opened the back door and got her dogs, Bonnie and Rosie, out of the house and then went back for her cat Tiger.

Mrs Drinkwater said: "I got the dogs out first and I knew the cat was curled up in front of the fire so I picked him up and put him in the back garden."

But the dogs had followed her back in again and so she had to go back into the house to retrieve them.

Meanwhile Tiger had also crept back in and by now thick smoke had engulfed the house.

She said: "I couldn't find him outside and I suddenly thought 'He's in there' and told the firemen."

Stockton Heath and Birchwood firefighters had raced to the scene and Birchwood's Jim Clarke ran into the house and found the frightened cat curled up in a bedroom.

Mrs Drinkwater said: "When he came out he was all sooty and dribbly and was almost unconscious."

Mrs Drinkwater was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation and Tiger, who is almost completely deaf and 'daft as a brush', was taken to the vets where he has made a miraculous recovery.

She said: "He has really been in the wars. About two months ago he broke his leg thinking he could still jump off heights like he used to, but he has got no muscle left. And six months ago he was very poorly and at death's door but he got better again."