Can a Cat find its way home after being left behind?

10101

my guess is it will go to the closet place that has a food source

Last winter a young (maybe 5-8 months old) cat showed up on our property. It's very rural here. He was obviously hungry so we fed him some salmon. That of course is a near guarantee he's not going to want to leave. We put up signs around here and in the nearby town about the 'found cat'. About a week later we got a call from the owners. He had apparently gotten into a truck bed and rode into town but bailed out at a gas station. From there he went in a direction that was almost the opposite of home. There are foxes and a lot of other potential cat enemies around here but cats are usually very smart survivalists.

I've heard of stories where cats have travelled long distances to get back home and when I was a kid I had a cat that disappeared for 3 months before finding his way back. I think the best thing you could do is to post signs in the area where you think he is (with pictures if possible) and maybe offer a reward.

I know what it's like to lose two cats years ago. I have not heard the same stories about cats as you hear about lost dogs finding their way home...sometimes over great distances. I hope you find him/her.

Flashanator,

Don't expect the cat to find his or her way back over 10km! Go there--the sooner the better--and start searching the area. Put up signs, with a picture. Go to the nearest SPCA. Go to nearby houses. Do everything you can, because cats do not fare well out on their own, in a strange new place. Call his or her name repeatedly. Bring his or her favorite food. Don't wait. It's not impossible for a cat to find his or her way back home even over that distance, but it's very unlikely.

There was a news story here a while ago about such a case.

It took close to a year and a half, and the cat has some battle scars, but the cat did find it's owners about 20 km away from where they used to live.

Well I can tell you from my own experience that cats can find their way over long distances. When I was about 12 years old we were moving from Gulfport, Mississippi, to northern Virginia and during our last few nights in Biloxi we were staying on Keesler Air Force Base which was maybe 10 miles from the house we had been living in. Well the cat wanted out to do who knows what and did not return that night. The next morning we had to get on the road and after a few hours of searching to no avail we departed. My dad contacted the landlord for the house we had been renting just in the off chance that the cat would finds it's way back.

Amazingly, 3 months later we got a phone call from the lady and she said a cat was wondering around the house that looked a lot like ours and responded to the name - Tuffy. So my dad arranged to have the cat sent to Virginia and when we went to the airport to pick him up it sure enough was him! Now what was incredible was the metamorphasis Tuffy went through - he was a lilac point siamese and his coat had darkened considerably, his meow was much deeper - almost a growling of sorts, and his teeth appeared bigger and longer. Tuffy had adapted to living in the wild and fending for himself for 3 months just to survive. It took a few months for him to return to a more normal looking family pet.

Tuffy lived on to the ripe old age of about 16 if memory serves me correctly - died from cat leukemia (or maybe just plain old age if you ask me).

So I honestly believe there is a good chance your cat may return. Keep looking and don't give up after a few days.

Cheers,
Tim

hopefully some kind hearted person will find the kitty and read his ID TAG...

Flashanator said:

If a 4yr old domestic cat which spends 50% of its life outside was left behind at a place 10km away near rural/bush small town at night.

Would it survive?
Would it try & find its way home or just start living near nearby area?

Maybe the sun direction later could help it find its way home? Doubt any sent would help as the cat would be in a car on its journey there.

any help, needed.

Click to expand...

Very unlikely tht it would find it's way home. I live near a college town and at the end of every school year a bunch of cats are dumped out in the country side or in the nearby park (there used to be birds there.)by stupid college kids.
Most die, some live a short miserable life. If there are coyotes around their chance is even less.

I kidnapped Elvira, mistress of the night, the cat sleeping in the corner from where she was abandoned when people moved out, leaving her no food or water.

It took a few weeks but now we both know who is boss.

When kitty says "JUMP!"
You say "how high? - Right?

When my neighbors split up, she took the cats and moved just outside of town, maybe 3 miles from here. Imagine my suprise to find Mr. Garfield eating food in our garage one day (my mom feeds strays). He's snuck out more than once and came back to his old turf everytime. He is a very young cat and still has his front claws however. Does this cat still have it's front claws? Having those totally ups the chance of survival.

I hope you're able to find it or that it somehow shows up. I know their are exceptions but I don't hear of many who find their way home. Maybe you can spend some time walking around the area where it was left.

We have cats at the client's site where I work at. About a year ago, there was only one. But apparently there was at least one other cat of the opposite sex. Now we have a handful. Including a small family of three that lives in one spot. From what I've seen, they're not very intelligent. I feed them on a regular basis. Even putting food down right in front of them at their favorite spots on the client's property.

Yet, they still fail to associate me with meal time. They always run away, even when I'm far away. It gets annoying sometimes. The food has clearly been eaten when I check it the next day. But there are other critters on the property. It's possible one of them is enjoying the free meat.

We had an old goose that died a couple of months ago. He always just stayed in one spot, day after day. I figured he wasn't leaving to feed himself and then coming back. So I started feeding him. Pretty soon, he'd slowly walk up to me when he saw me. He stayed back a bit, but he clearly did associate my presence with meal time.

Unfortunately, I think cats sometimes get too much credit for being more intelligent than we think they are.

Hi Cobraman.
Great story re Tuffy.
FYI the dark areas of siamese coat are temp dependant. They correspond to the cooler areas of the cat body.
Some siamese who run prolonged hi temps go lighter or develop grey/white flecks which reverse on resuming normal temps so I presume Tuffy was out in the open over cold winter nights. If so can you remember if he returned to his normal colour after some months?

I feel for ya Flashanator! :candle:

My cat went missing (door left open by an absent-minded roommate) for 8 days here in the city of Chicago...

I had around 80 laminated posters put up within a 4 block radius, I slept outside on my porch with a dish of food, and would wake up at 3am to walk the alleys in my neighborhood to try and find Oatie.

Finally, someone called me from the flyer, and it turns out he had been coming to their house for the past few nights, and sitting on their porch with them... a BLOCK away from my house! :angry:

My advice:
Put flyers EVERYWHERE, check (don't call - stop in!) all of the shelters, scour the area (late at night if you can... 2-3am!!), and keep the faith!

:thumbsup: john

Monocrom said:

Yet, they still fail to associate me with meal time. They always run away, even when I'm far away. It gets annoying sometimes. The food has clearly been eaten when I check it the next day. But there are other critters on the property. It's possible one of them is enjoying the free meat.



Unfortunately, I think cats sometimes get too much credit for being more intelligent than we think they are.

Click to expand...

I've pretty much learned that strays are paranoid, they see the food as bait, they are always more jumpy when they are around food. However some are much, much smarter than others, one of mine can open a couple of doors in our house that have easier to turn doorknobs and he also knows how to turn on my Princeton Tec AMP 3.0 LOL.

Monocrom said:

We have cats at the client's site where I work at. About a year ago, there was only one. But apparently there was at least one other cat of the opposite sex. Now we have a handful. Including a small family of three that lives in one spot. From what I've seen, they're not very intelligent. I feed them on a regular basis. Even putting food down right in front of them at their favorite spots on the client's property.

Yet, they still fail to associate me with meal time. They always run away, even when I'm far away. It gets annoying sometimes. The food has clearly been eaten when I check it the next day. But there are other critters on the property. It's possible one of them is enjoying the free meat.

We had an old goose that died a couple of months ago. He always just stayed in one spot, day after day. I figured he wasn't leaving to feed himself and then coming back. So I started feeding him. Pretty soon, he'd slowly walk up to me when he saw me. He stayed back a bit, but he clearly did associate my presence with meal time.

Unfortunately, I think cats sometimes get too much credit for being more intelligent than we think they are.

Click to expand...

Cats are like people - some are very smart and some are not. I've seen some of both. It sounds like you had ferrel cats and many of them are not at all trusting - essentially wild and sometimes not too smart either.

I agree with what js and others have said - don't leave it to the cat to find his way home as that's a long shot. Do all you can to find him/her.

Monocrom said:

Yet, they still fail to associate me with meal time. They always run away, even when I'm far away. It gets annoying sometimes. The food has clearly been eaten when I check it the next day.

Click to expand...

We started feeding two strays around March of last year. One of our neighbors also put dishes out for them. One was an adult, the other looked to be a few months old when we first noticed it last March. We tried to gain their trust in order to take them in. Unfortunately, even after six months at best we could manage was to approach within a few feet, or maybe a quick tap on the nose when the kitten was eating. Yet they clearly associated us with food. Sometimes the kitten would meow at us when we saw it, begging for food. We still see the older cat, and our neighbor is feeding it. Haven't seen the kitten since late January. I hope someone else managed to gain its trust and took it in, but likely it succumbed to the elements. Sad thing, too. If only it had trusted us a little more, it would have been nice and cozy in the winter instead of freezing outside.

They used to sleep around our house, so it's obvious they felt safe here:

jtr1962 said:

We still see the older cat, and our neighbor is feeding it. Haven't seen the kitten since late January. I hope someone else managed to gain its trust and took it in, but likely it succumbed to the elements. Sad thing, too. If only it had trusted us a little more, it would have been nice and cozy in the winter instead of freezing outside.

Click to expand...

Awhile back, I used to notice two kittens that would frequently explore the client's property. They were always together. When one found food; he'd go get the other one and they'd share it. Quite a sight. One was indeed paranoid, but the other one was curious as Hell. Whenever I stopped by, that one would get up on his hind legs and just look at me; while his brother took off. His brother became the dad in the same family of three I mentioned in my other post. The curious one... Haven't seen him for quite a bit. Hope he's okay, but likely his curiosity caused him some trouble with one of the other, bigger, critters wandering the property.

Some interesting stories here. I agree that generally speaking the loyalty of a cat goes as far as the food source. When I was a kid, we had a cat disappear for six months then suddenly show up one day, plumper then before he left.