Get out your Kleenex. You are going to hear stories about cats who refused to be lost. Cats are true to their roots and like to return to their original place of birth and owners. Felines are territorial creatures that become very attached to the original places. They can get lost easily when introduced to a new place because their instinct is to return to the old home. Even numerous unsuccessful attempts will not discourage the cat because he or she is operating on instinct.
What causes cats to return home over very long distances as has been a topic that has fascinated scientists and pet owners alike. Cats have what is called the homing instinct which transcends the five senses. The homing instinct kicks in when a cat is separated from its original home and has a desire to return. Another aspect of the homing instinct is for a cat to follow its owner. Watching the homing instinct have been in action can be a fascinating exercise and is hard to comprehend the complexity of a cat’s brain and instinct that can lead its home from a very far distance. Studies have been performed in the US and Germany which involved many cats were taken away from their homes through a very circuitous and lengthy journey and deposited in an area. Amazingly, most of the cats would take the most direct route home without any intervention. Older cats tend to do much better than younger cats, however, if the distance was 8 miles or more from home the ability to find its way home decreased.
There are some who explain this phenomenon based on Bell’s Theorem. According to Bell’s theorem, since electrons are in pairs, if you alter this direction of one electron, the direction of the other will be affected because it senses the change. Since animals are made of cells which contain electrons, perhaps the cat’s ability to find its way back comes from sensing things at a cellular level. Whatever the cause, there are doubtless amazing stories about cats who have returned home for long distances. Although this isn’t so good for the pet owners who moved far away, at least the cat owners have a good idea of where to look if they are missing their cat.
Robin Alex lived in Albuquerque New Mexico went to build a habitats humanity house in New Orleans in 2009. When she had returned from her good deed she received some terrible news. Her cat Charles was missing. Robin was devastated by this news and could not find the cat a letter how many ad she placed or signs she put up. Eight months later, long after she’d given up hope she received a call from a Chicago animal shelter. A microchip and other information indicated that she was the owner of the cat that was found, but the bad news was that the cats would be euthanized within six days if she didn’t come pick him up.
Robin Alex couldn’t afford the journey only Chicago but was determined to have someone go to the Windy City to retrieve her. Fortunately, Lucien Sims who resided in Albuquerque volunteered to make the trip to Chicago to fetch the cat because in any case, he was going to a wedding in Chicago. One good deed led to another with a business loading the cat carrier and American Airlines deciding not to charge for the cats fee. While Robin Alex could well have regretted going to New Orleans to build that house for the homeless person, a journey that had led to the disappearance of her cat. However, she found that Her good deed was answered by the kind gestures of others who helped restore her cat. The question of how it was that Charles had ventured 1300 miles away from home to and up in Chicago is still a mystery and is known only to the cat.
If the ghost stories can be cheerful, this definitely fits the bill and is an illustration of the adage that cats have nine lives. Angelo Petrillo of Manchester England was devastated when he had to bury his big orange cat which he thought had been struck dead by a car. He mourned out they would been a good friend of his. Nine months later when the Petrillo family moved to a new home. Someone reported that a big orange cat that fit the description was trying to get into the house. He was rather plump so it is clear that somebody was caring for him, but Angelo inspected the cat and confirmed that it was his. The cat who had been buried might have been a stray who resembled or perhaps cats do have nine lives.
Many years and great distances do not separate cats from their owners. The one advantage of having a microchip installed into a pet is that will help owners trace their lost animals. However many cats are perfectly capable of finding their way home unassisted even if months or years have passed. Virginia Fryback gave up looking for her cat after five years had passed, but her feline friend showed up in the Fort Wayne Indiana animal shelter not too far away from where Fry back lived. With the help of the microchip, the cat was established as the one Fryback had lost years earlier.
Sometimes, however, cats to wander off into new horizons without any clue as to why they leave for what they are trying to find. However, this is and always due to the will of the cat can because by the interference of others. Willow belonged to Chris and Jamie Squires of Bloomfield, Colorado. They were convinced that there in cat was gone forever during contractor that accidentally let her out. Since there were a number of coyotes and other predators in the area, the Squires assume that Willow had fallen prey to one of them. They were amazed to get a phone call from a New York City and shelter do their information is been revealed a microchip. They were thankful they had updated their contact data after they moved to another city. The today show, which wanted to cover the story paid for the couples expenses to fly to New York. They wondered how Willow had ended up only in New York City. And there’s an unconfirmed rumor or that a New Yorker picked up the cat during his ski vacation Colorado, but no one confessed to the act.
Five years seems like a long time to be separated from the cat but there are stories of eight and nine your separations that had a happy reunion. Gilly Delaney had given up on her missing cat Dixie and was sure that she was victim to a car. However, nine years later the cat was owned within mile of the original home and was grateful to be reunited with her owners. It’s always a good idea to be careful before introducing another pet. Orvar was a beloved cat in Iceland but his owner Birkir Fjalar Vioarsson adopted a dog to keep Orvar company. The cat wasn’t very happy about this and ran off. After a few years of checking the animal shelters, Vioarsson gave up looking. Seven years later them will shelter contacted Vioarsson with the news that they found his. Immediately recognized his owner and was happy to be home.
The above stories demonstrate at least one important principle; that it is vital to install microchip in your cat. The sad fact is that shelters have between 6 to 8 million cats and dogs annually and around half of them were euthanized. many of these animals and not strays but are pets that were lost. Microchip technology has been responsible for reuniting thousands of pets with their owners and is created moving stories from potential tragedies. Microchips work by relating information through radio frequency. The chip is extremely small and is in and under the skin in the shoulder region. A number that corresponds with your cats file is coded on the chip number is access to a scanner. You no longer need an old-fashioned collar and to have to identify your cat although is a good idea to have these for neighbors or others to be able to return your cat without a scanner. The success rate of pet and owner reunions, those who use microchip technology is at around 75% whereas did not have microchips returned to their owners only 15% of the time.
There are some stories in which a cat disappear not into the woodwork, but the furniture. Cats love warm comfortable objects, but you should be careful that any furniture your giving way doesn’t have your cat inside. Pauline and Bill Lowe of Corringham England decided to donate some old couches to a charity shop. Unfortunately, these sofas had to be taken apart to get them to the door so they can be moved from the home. This was done and the sofas were reassembled outside. When the couple returned they noticed that their cat Crockett was gone. Meanwhile, the people who purchased the sofa heard him meowing noise whenever they sit down. They brought the sofa back to his shop and the owner said that she saw claws poking through the material. The only way to release the cat wants to tear up the sofa, but at least the kitty was free and reunited with its owners.
One thing that may be hard to face as a cat owner is having doubt that a long-missing cat is really yours. For people who don’t use microchip technology, the owner was a gut feeling that the returning cat is a long-lost pet are often said to be functioning on wishful thinking. However, it is the fact that cats can return months or years after they are gone. Holly, of four-year-old tortoiseshell, became separated from her owners after the attended they attended an RV convention in Daytona Beach Florida. A scrawny, Exhausted cat with similar patterns appeared 200 miles from the convention to the home of her owners Jacob and Bonnie Richter. The cat had blood on her paws and her feet and her claws worn away, which shows that Holly really exert herself during the walk. She not wandered away very far before, and that the fact that her mother feral cat might have given the genes to handle extended periods
Of wandering outside. The time she wandered away from the RV gathering, Holly been an indoor cat and was not used to adventure. The Richter’s believed that Holly might’ve been scared by a relative suddenly opening the door and fireworks at the event.
There have been some Holly sightings before the cat was eventually reunited with the Richter’s. One said that a cat that resembled Holly was seen eating with feral cats outside of the franchise Hooters. On New Year’s Eve, a woman by the name of Barb Mazzola saw a very weak cats that later was identified as Holly and the family named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Miserables. A Veterinarian gave the family advice on how to care for their dehydrated and malnourished cat and were ready to adopts the cat who still seems shy around people. Barb Mazzola confessed that she shed tears when she found out that the cat had a microchip in the previous owner but was thrilled to return the cat to the Richters.
Some psychologists suggest that owners believe lost cats are theirs because of wishful thinking. There would’ve been some skepticism if and only been a matter of Holly having the same black and brown markings, but luckily she also had a microchip. The use of microchip technology has been instrumental in revealing the extent to which cats return to their owners hundreds of miles away. Experts in animal behavior that identify Street Smarts, being a hunter and picking up on clues. The Bell Theorem, as described above may explain why cats and cellular level have an instinct to return migratory and such as birds use magnetic clues and wolves use scent to help navigate, but not enough research has been done to figuring out why cats often find their way back.
Another issue that isn’t talked about very often among cat owners is the incidence of feline infidelity. This isn’t concerning to cats who are mates cheating on each other with other cats, but cats cheating on their owners by visiting other people and getting food and affection from the. The National Geographic and the University of George’s Kitty Cam project the kind of behavior that would make many pet owners feel betrayed. This study followed 55 cats, and discovered that about four of them were two timing their owners and word spending time in more than one house. This is probably lower than the rate of cheating among humans, but it can be disconcerting if it happens.
Many cats, however, are not cheating on their owners but simply did not feel they were consulted before a major event like a move. These cats will travel great distances through unfamiliar terrain to find the original home. One of the main reasons is that cats tend to be more territorial than human beings and don’t take kindly to moving. It just so happens that cat a behaviorists name Jackson Galaxy who is was the host of “My Cat from Hell” on Animal Planet was living in Colorado and moved across town. His cat called Rabbi trekked for 5 miles to areas he never see to return to the former house. There are many stories around the world cats traveling hundreds in some cases even thousand more miles to a former residence. Not all cats are content to simply travel by foot but there was a Siamese cat in Black Notley England who jumped off a train at White Notley and returned to Black Notley repeatedly.
The homing instinct in cats provides hope to those who might have lost their cats during an outing but is not great news for those to a different city. Although the phenomenon of cats walking for hundreds of miles is rare, some cats may return a few miles across town. Searching at a former address is usually the best place to look. The homing instinct in cats is been studied for many decades with research going back to the 1950s and 1920s. In one study a single cat was placed at seven locations 3 miles away from her home. They chose a cat who was a new mother, had a litter of kittens at home and had a motive to return.
The cat was taken in a large sack so that it wasn’t able to see anything and placed inside a box. The lid was lifted from the box and the scientist studied the behavior. By today’s standards, this would seem a rather inhumane approach to studying cat behavior, but the scientists found that the cat returned each time except in the final test when she was taken nearly 17 miles away. In most of the test the cat was oriented correctly and direction of its home and only a few had to correct the orientation. The study found that the cats to didn’t find their way home had had a distracting incident happened on the way let them off course. The homing instinct is not entirely understood but some feel it is the cats sensitivity to electromagnetic fields which enables them to keep sense of where they are.
While many of these missing Stories have happy endings, the happiest scenario wall is that cats don’t get lost in the first place. If you live in the country, you might face a situation where cats come and go and are fairly free range. On the other hand, you may have an indoor cat and let it in the city for habit the suburbs where your cat divides it’s time between indoor and outdoor activities. Wherever you live, it is essential to have a microchip inserted in your pet’s skin. Some people feel uncomfortable with this procedure but is no more invasive than spaying or neutering a pet. Others feel creeped out by the notion of inserting a microchip, which seems the stock of conspiracy theories about futuristic totalitarian governments and microchipping people.
One way to dismiss this discomfort is to realize that this because many cats are spayed and neutered, there hasn’t been an accepted policy in free societies of mass sterilization for humans, and while you would not like having a microchip installed on your shoulder to monitor you and identify you, you are a free person that ability to speak and your cats cannot identify himself to ensure he can be brought back to where he belongs if he is lost. Since your Cat can’t memorize addresses, like your child and cannot or tell people your name, microchip is an essential tool in helping reunite owners with their cats even after they have lost hope. It is still important that you purchase a collar and a tag contains your name and other information. Also, make sure that your cat has a reflective collar so they can be seen by drivers.
People associate loyalty to dogs, but many feel cats are not given enough credit for their devotion to their homes and their owners. In addition to feeling a sense of loyalty for their owners, cats are by nature territorial and willful. If they are not consulted about a move, they will simply go back to where they lived before. Not all cats are so devoted to their special places, but you can help your cat adjust by moving into a new place in phases.
Spread out your move over a period of weeks and take your cat to the location now again so he or she becomes familiar with their new home. Also keep in mind your cat after you moved to make sure that he or she doesn’t have lost. Avoid introducing a new animal into your house so soon after you moved to avoid giving the The impression that he or she has been replaced. You can’t entirely prevent the possibility that your cat will attempt to go back to the neighborhood, but if you have a sense of the homing instinct unit the first place to look and in any case, a microchip will make it more than likely you can find her.