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Animals finding their way home

When I was little, our cat got lost and couldn't find it's way back home from 300 feet away :) Luckely some people who then took care of him, recognized him from an advertisement put in the local paper, and contacted us.
 
bruto said:
When he reappeared he looked just about how you'd expect a cat to look after a month on the road, sick, scrawny and injured.
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My parents had a cat that made it home from 90 miles away, but it took 9 months. That's not very good if you ask me. I suspect he wandered many hundreds of miles before he happened on familiar territory. He was fortunate in that when he started he was a moderately fat 20 lbs. He arrived at a sickly 8 lbs (skin and bones, as he was a big cat), with a tail that had clearly been broken and healed crooked. When he left he had the typical aloof cat personality, but after his ordeal he was incredibly friendly. There's no chance he was a different cat though, he had the same scar over one eye.

The funny thing is, he apparently took off because he didn't get along with my brothers dog (my brother was watching him at the time). By the time he found his way home, my parents had taken possession of the same dog. All that for nothing.
 
skepticalcriticalguy said:
I'm skeptical! Ever notice it's always a friend of a friend's cat?! Not your own? Hmmmmmm.....
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The cat in my story came to my parents' house and I was involved with its journeys at various points, although I did not live there full time. Anyway, I don't think there's that much doubt that cats can make a 55 mile trip or find their way over that distance. Just how he did it I don't know, but it's far from a record, and in this case the cat's previous ramblings were unknown. He was an adult cat when he first appeared at our house, and may well have been familiar with much of the territory he later traversed on his return.
 
I had someone come to me with an amazing story and photos to show the cat had the same markings and the kids were all convinced but the cat was the wrong sex. There needs to be some kind of positive identification such as a microchip or a tattoo before I am going to be interested.
 
My uncle lived on a small farm about 10 kilometres out of Euroa in Victoria, Australia. On one occasion that Dad and I visited, my uncle suggested that at the end of the trip, rather than him driving us both into town, I could ride his horse into town. He said that every so often the horse would look around at the view behind him, and would be able to use that knowledge to wander back to the farm.

I never tried it, so I don't know whether it would have worked, but it shows my uncle didn't see anything paranormal about the horse's skills.
 
So can we subtract the number of times a pet got lost from the number of times a pet found it's way home? If we do, I suspect we will end up with a very negative number...
 
MRC_Hans said:
- Fabrication. Parents have cat put down, tell children it has returned to the old home, etc, etc.
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Or cat really does die. Parents then bury said feline in ancient indian earth. Feline returns. Children notice something different about their beloved furry one, particularly the fact that it smells really really bad.
 
hipparchia said:
My great-grandmother kept cats in the yard. When they became too many, she would take one or two and put them on a cargo train. Then one day she put the smartest old cat on the train. Weeks later, the cat returned. Several days after that she died from exhaustion.
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I'm no great lover of cats, but man, that's f'd up! However, I'm still laughing at this just the same! (So sue me). All aboard the Kitty Express!!!

I saw a TV documentary where a trained police dog sniffed out the trail of a dead body that was transported in the trunk of a car. The dog was able to locate the correct exit ramp on the freeway and the bad guy was captured soon after.
 
Well, cats were not exactly a priority in a mid-20th centyry Bulgarian villages...so getting rid of the extra stock was in the line of things. Also, my great-grandmother did call the practise something in the vein of kitty-express, she said she would be sending the cats away "to get an education".

A side story, I was travelling by train once and an olf lady was transporting her cats with her in two large cardboard boxes. She had about 20 kilos of cats (but I can't say about how many separate cats). I helped her cary one of the boxes, since the lady herself must have weighed about 40 kilos. A large tom was trying to escape from one of the boxes and had to be pushed back in.

Well, BG may be and EU member but we still need working on our animal treatment. Giving toys to pigs and all.
 
MRC_Hans said:
- Chance. If you calculate the ratio of cats lost to the number that showed up somewhere, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd find that even supposing them wandering off in random directions, a fair number lost (killed, found new homes, etc.), the number hitting close enough to home to find the last few miles by local knowledge, would explain the observations.
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Judging by the number of Lost Pet signs that litter the entrance road to the big housing developments in my area, I'd say this is the most likely explanation for most of the stories.

It tugs the heart strings (awwww, kitty came home) and hints at the supernatural/unknown, so the one in a million that make it get reported.

"Cat failed to learn road crossing skills in time" and "Cat got adopted by family in housing development five miles west" don't make good movies.
 
Tirdun said:
Judging by the number of Lost Pet signs that litter the entrance road to the big housing developments in my area, I'd say this is the most likely explanation for most of the stories.

It tugs the heart strings (awwww, kitty came home) and hints at the supernatural/unknown, so the one in a million that make it get reported.

"Cat failed to learn road crossing skills in time" and "Cat got adopted by family in housing development five miles west" don't make good movies.
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I would also guess that the majority of "lost cats" are squashed, and either merged with the roadside or shoveled up before the kiddies can see them. Of course, some just do get lost in some way. In addition to my "cat came back" story above, my mom had a cat that disappeared and turned up weeks later, nearly starved to death, inside a nearby house that had been under construction. He had wandered in just before the builders closed up the house while awaiting materials or something. Cats are very tough and tenacious little beasts.

Cats also vary enormously in their survival skills. I live out in the country, with no cat of my own, but a big pest-filled old barn, which all the neighborhood cats frequent. I can't recall how many squished cat bodies have appeared in front of my place over the last 20 years, but it's pretty clear from that and the changing population that some of them just don't have what it takes. On the other hand, one grizzled old puss came around for years without risk, despite living a quarter mile down the road. Nearly every day we would see him hunting around, often heading home with mouse in mouth, safely crossing the road through the culvert, until he became too old to make the trip, and eventually died of old age.

I have yet another lost cat story, from my ex wife. She grew up in Switzerland, where I guess people think differently about such things. They had a cat, which "disappeared." Some time later, she was rummaging in her parents' closet, as kids often do, and found the cat's pelt, nicely preserved. There does seem to be more than one way to skin a cat.
 
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