For reasons unbeknownst to me, we arrived home from swimming and Amy decided to put collars on the cats.

With bells.

She and the kid disappeared upstairs, leaving me to prepare our lunch of pork loin chops with a mixed berry sweet-and-sour sauce, stir-fried veggies and long-grain brown rain.

Unbeknownst to her, the cats almost ended up elsewhere.

But we live in Australia, not Vietnam, where police have arrested six men on suspicion of stealing as many as 4,000 cats over two years to sell for their meat.

The gang stole between four and six cats each night for two years, police in Vinh City said on Friday. They sold a kilogram of cat for $US3, and used the money to play online games, police said.

Although dog thefts are common in Vietnam, this is the first time a group of people have been arrested for stealing such a large number of cats.

The head of the gang, 26-year-old Nguyen Duc Dung, told police they caught the animals by baiting traps with pieces of fish and leaving them outside homes where they knew people kept cats.

Angry locals alerted the police after their pets continued to go missing. The men were caught red-handed as they tried to catch more cats.

Cat meat is a popular delicacy in some parts of Vietnam, usually eaten barbecued as a snack and served with rice wine.