I’ve always been amazed at how many cats are able to find their way home when their family moves out of town. We’ve all read about incredible journeys of a cat covering hundreds of kilometres and arriving bedraggled and a bit hungry but otherwise just in need of a hug and a warm bed. How do they do it?
Firstly we need to remember cats are very territorial. They spend an enormous amount of time and effort in marking out their territory, sometimes fighting over spraying rights and getting to know where the “no go zones” are in their territory. Cats don’t realise that sometimes we need to move for work, economic or social reasons and when we yank them out of their well developed territory. It is their instinct to try to get home. Does that mean cats appreciate their territory more than they appreciate us? Hmm not sure I want to know the answer to that one!
We also know cats have a very broad range of hearing and can pick up clues about where they are with train noise, aircraft noise or even a flowing river. Because they’re close to the ground they pick up vibrations through their sensitive paws and are able to hear wildlife noises much better than us all of which can give them clues about where they are. Because they don’t see colours as well as we do the trade off is much better vision in low light so they’re able to cover a lot of territory while a lot of the world is off busy streets thereby increasing their chances of getting home. Lastly it’s been found that cats have magnetic sensors in their wrists which could possibly be used to detect changes in the earth’s magnetic field. By attaching a magnet to a test cat scientists were able to disrupt the cat’s homing ability which adds support to the magnetic field detection theory.
However they do it it’s remarkable and shows what determined little buggers they are.