# Have scientists figured out "homing cats" yet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 8, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156 "2010-02-08T17:08:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/21 "2010-02-09T01:50:53Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > I don’t know if this counts, but I moved 40 miles once, taking my cat, Brute, with me. A week or so after the move, he got out and was nowhere to be found. Three weeks later he showed up on my son’s best friend’s doorstep. I guess it was the area he was attached to rather than us. > Rather than risk his life with the same trip, we gave him to the friends he sought out. May I ask how you knew it was in fact the same cat? Microchip? Tattoo? Or did you drive the 40 miles and personally identify the animal? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/22 "2010-02-09T07:45:30Z")
> [@](#): > > My friend/co-worker moved across the city, a very convoluted distance of 7 miles, across a wide waterway which is crossable only by a highway or a railroad bridge. Her cat disappeared the first week after the move, and four days later, her old landlord called her and told her her cat was hanging around the basement of the old apartment building and to come get it. I was with her when all this happened, so it’s not just an anecdote. It wasn’t a huge distance, but it was one that would have been virtually impossible for a human to have navigated without a map. My friend personally ID’d her cat after retrieving it from the old apartment building. ---
**Author:** ![Sizzles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@Sizzles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sizzles)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/23 "2010-02-09T09:10:59Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > so it’s not just an anecdote That’s exactly what it is. > [@needscoffee](#): > > It wasn’t a huge distance, but it was one that would have been virtually impossible for a human to have navigated without a map. Virtually impossible for a human to navigate 7 miles without a map ? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/24 "2010-02-09T09:42:22Z")
> [@Sizzles](#): > > That’s exactly what it is. > > Virtually impossible for a human to navigate 7 miles without a map ? It’s not an anecdote when I was with her every day at work as she worried about her runaway cat, and with her when the ex-landlord called her at work and asked her why she left Necco behind. I meant virtually impossible to navigate by foot - sorry. The route, going across a large waterway to a separated area of the city, is reachable only two ways: by an elevated highway bridge with no walkable section or even a shoulder of any kind, or a railroad bridge, which must have been the route she took. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/25 "2010-02-09T09:52:34Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > May I ask how you knew it was in fact the same cat? Microchip? Tattoo? Or did you drive the 40 miles and personally identify the animal? The cat went to my son’s best friend’s house, of course we went there, not just to id the cat but to visit, many times over the next few years. Brute was an odd looking cat, who chased dogs and the mailman. He was taller than the average cat, a very even blue/gray color, with one pink paddy paw, right front, equivalant to the index finger. He was wearing a blue and red collar with his name on it when he left and still had it on when he arrived back in the old neighborhood. If it was a different cat, the coincidence would be stranger than his trip. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/26 "2010-02-09T09:56:09Z")
> [@Sizzles](#): > > Virtually impossible for a human to navigate 7 miles without a map ? Yeah, have to wonder about that. 7 miles in any direction from where I live I can clearly see several prominent landmarks. I wouldn’t even need to “navigate”. I would instantly know where I was. 7 miles really isn’t all that far when you consider that even a housecat will travel a mile in a night’s prowl, and that feral cats will travel several miles in a night and can have home ranges up to 10 miles across. So the cat that travelled 7 miles very likely only had 5 miles between the home boundaries of the two residences. When you allow that it would recognise, by smell, all the cats that adjoined its original territory, and some of those cats would likewise have 1 mile ranges, then it really only need to find it’s way across 4 miles in unfamiliar territory. That might seem like a long distance, but with an animal with a nose it’s not really that far. I wouldn’t necessarily expect every cat to survive the trip, but the fact that one out of possibly thousands managed to do so seems almost certain. ---
**Author:** ![Sizzles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@Sizzles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sizzles)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/27 "2010-02-09T10:05:41Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > It’s not an anecdote when I was with her every day at work as she worried about her runaway cat, and with her when the ex-landlord called her at work and asked her why she left Necco behind. > > I meant virtually impossible to navigate by foot - sorry. The route, going across a large waterway to a separated area of the city, is reachable only two ways: by an elevated highway bridge with no walkable section or even a shoulder of any kind, or a railroad bridge, which must have been the route she took. I’m not suggesting it isn’t true. It’s an anecdote because it wasn’t a scientific test. We don’t know what the cat already knew about the area, I’m assuming it wasn’t a house-cat, so it could have roamed as far as the highway bridge or the railway bridge before? ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/28 "2010-02-09T10:06:04Z")
There’s also the fact that even with perfectly ordinary means, it’s not impossible for a cat to find its owner across a great distance, it’s just very very unlikely. But, very unlikely things happen all the time if given enough opportunity, and there’s certainly a lot of opportunities with all the moving families and left behind cats over a span of, say, 50 years, the majority of whom never reconnect. Whenever something that unlikely does happen, people tend to go one of two routes – either, they attempt an explanation, something that makes the unlikely not seem quite that unlikely; or, they call it inexplicable and paranormal. However, neither is necessary in most cases – every now and then, you just get lucky, we’re just not wired to deal well with the highly unlikely, on account of it happening only rarely. So, I’m not really sure there’s much to figure out – even genuine cases, with absolutely positive identification of the animal in question, may in the end just boil down to coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/29 "2010-02-09T15:15:16Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Fourteen months later, bedraggled Sugar showed up at the Oklahoma farm just in time for milking. > > That’s a pretty hardscrabble way to make a living. I guess things really didn’t work out in California. Apparently they didn’t. I’d have thought there would be plenty of stray cats in California that could be milked. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/30 "2010-02-09T16:40:16Z")
The cat probably overheard the family talking about the new address 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/31 "2010-02-09T16:46:19Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Ok, apparently all of these stories of animals following humans to unknown locations source to a single journal article by J.B. Rhine (the “father of modern parasychology” according to the Parapsychological Association) in 1962. > > In a 1962 issue of the Journal of Parapsychology ("The study of cases of psi-tailing in animals) he published a study of “psi-tailing” by pets where they tracked followed humans to unknown locations. According to a recap in _[The Cat: A Complete Authoritative Compendium of Information About Domestic Cats](http://books.google.com/books?id=tnjgqpNKYksC&pg=PA196&dq=smoky+persian+tennessee&lr=&cd=19#v=onepage&q=sugar&f=false)_ (1979) he reviewed all of the claimed incidents and filtered it down to 28 reported cases that passed muster. Sugar is one of them. > > Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the Journal of Parasychology to read it and get a sense of how reliable that would be (for example, did he do interviews or just accept stories that included sufficient detail to apparently rule out incorrect identification). Little of Rhine’s other research is particularly reliable. Since “parapsychology” is a pseudoscience, and not a real field of scientific study, I would hazard a guess that the journal is not rigorously peer reviewed or reliable. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/32 "2010-02-09T16:56:28Z")
> [@Sizzles](#): > > I’m not suggesting it isn’t true. It’s an anecdote because it wasn’t a scientific test. We don’t know what the cat already knew about the area, I’m assuming it wasn’t a house-cat, so it could have roamed as far as the highway bridge or the railway bridge before? Of course it was a house cat, they lived in an apartment building, on the 3rd floor. It wasn’t an outdoor cat. They moved to a house 7 miles away. The cat disappeared the first week, and a few days later was found back at its old apartment building. The crossing happens to be about 2-3 miles from the new home and 4-5 miles from the old one. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/33 "2010-02-09T16:57:31Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > The cat probably overheard the family talking about the new address 😃 This is what I’m thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/34 "2010-02-09T17:00:24Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > The possibility that the vet was either mistaken or flat out lied to the distraught kitty owners is, of course, just not possible. I imagine that once the story became famous, there would have been some rigorous fact-checking and reexaminations. Some visiting vet or researcher double-checking the vet records. (And in Sugar’s case, IIRC, the owner noticed the hip deformity herself when she was petting her). > [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Actually that element of the story, if accurate, kind of gives lie to the idea that the cat found them in an entirely new location. > > After all, how would the vet know it was the same cat unless it had seen the cat before (suggesting then either the cat had been in Oklahoma before or they drove the cat back to California to confirm identity)? But I’m guessing that’s an embellishment on the story. According to **obfusciatrist** , she had been there before. But even if she hadn’t, Vet A is perfectly capable of fowarding medical records to Vet B. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/35 "2010-02-09T17:07:12Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Since “parapsychology” is a pseudoscience, and not a real field of scientific study, I would hazard a guess that the journal is not rigorously peer reviewed or reliable. True. But neither does it mean that he didn’t use reasonably rigorous methods for screening the 500 reported cases down to 28 reliable reports. My expectation is that all 28 cases of pets finding their owners over long distances and to previously unknown locations are bogus in some way (though likely there won’t be enough information about most of them to reliably determine such). But regardless, since these were specific examples given by the OP I figured it useful to report where the original details could be found for how these reports entered into the folklore. As for the counter event of cats returning over long distances to places they’ve previously lived, I suggest a massive SD experiment. We’ll all chip and/or uniquely deform our cats in some way. We’ll have a giant Dopefest in some part of the country, bring our cats, and then leave them behind when we return home. We’ll then report afterward on how many cats eventually show up at home. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/36 "2010-02-09T17:19:11Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > According to **obfusciatrist** , she had been there before. But even if she hadn’t, Vet A is perfectly capable of fowarding medical records to Vet B. Perhaps, though I’m curious what those records would have been in 1952 (and I’m curious if the initial reports even mention a vet or if that was a later accretion); how many dairy farmers in 1952 were taking cats to the vet for regular checkups (I grew up in the suburbs in the '70s and most of our pets saw a vet to get sterilized and to die). But it is easy to imagine all kinds of ways identification might have happened. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/37 "2010-02-09T21:47:23Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > It’s not an anecdote when I was with her every day at work as she worried about her runaway cat, and with her when the ex-landlord called her at work and asked her why she left Necco behind. [Anecdote](http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/anecdote): a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/38 "2010-02-10T08:24:30Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > [Anecdote](http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/anecdote): a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident So why is my reporting it less accurate than your scientist? Do you think your scientist will devise a double-blind study? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/39 "2010-02-10T15:01:06Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > So why is my reporting it less accurate than your scientist? Do you think your scientist will devise a double-blind study? Accuracy has nothing to do with it. A single story (accurate to the “T”) is still an anecdote by definition. Calling it an anecdote isn’t an insult, or a slam, or disparaging - don’t take it that way. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156/40 "2010-02-10T19:16:15Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > I imagine that once the story became famous, there would have been some rigorous fact-checking and reexaminations. Some visiting vet or researcher double-checking the vet records. > (And in Sugar’s case, IIRC, the owner noticed the hip deformity herself when she was petting her). Why would you assume that there’s rigorous fact-checking for someone’s lost cat? Rigorous fact-checking is expensive and time consuming. We don’t have the resources to check every crackpot story out there even if we wanted to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-scientists-figured-out-homing-cats-yet/528156.md?page=3)