Trade Inn cat level reset

[LittleKuky]

There is a post on here titled "Kitcoon reset level after feeding and exiting game". I tried commenting there but I got an error. Then I tried making my own post and got an error. So now I'm trying in here. I have been opening up Don't Starve Together to give my trade inn cat treats, pet him, and clean up after him daily even when I didn't enter a world. This past week I have been playing with my kids so I would do my daily cat care before entering our world. But this morning I opened it up to play and he had run away even though I was petting, treating, and cleaning him. I adopted a new cat and it's HIM, same guy, like he was reset. Oh and it was around day 53 when he left. I stopped taking daily photos of him we he stopped growing. The below image shows my old cat on day 40, on top, and the new cat, that I just took a screenshot of today, on bottom. I'm guessing I can't get my old cat back but any idea why it might he happening so it doesn't happen again?