You have probably heard stories about pets who were lost, or dropped off, or left behind miles from home. But can dogs and cats really find their way home over seemingly impossible distances?
The skeptical answer: These amazing tales may not be quite so amazing. A pet may happen to find a ride in the right direction, or may simply pick the right direction by accident!
The modest answer: If the distance is reasonable and the pet is in a familiar area, the chances of him finding his way home is pretty good. Dogs and cats can roam pretty far from home and still make it back home. The real question may be this: can a pet find his way home if he is dropped into completely unfamiliar territory?
Dogs and cats do have a pretty fantastic ability to store mental maps and navigate new routes. Wild canines and felines had to search for food, and if they couldn’t find their way home, they wouldn’t survive very long. Finding the way back home was a simple matter of survival; these genes passed down into domestic dogs and cats. And wild dogs that are familiar with a certain area have the ability to invent new routes from one point to another! Certain points are used for reference, but are not necessary on familiar ground.
So how do dogs and cats navigate? Studies have shown that dogs and cats possess the ability to keep a mental map of their home area. They also have strong observational abilities — thanks to their super-human senses of hearing and smell. With just these tools, dogs and cats can roam far from home and eventually find their way back. Some scientists believe that dogs may also be able to sense magnetic fields to some extent.
Please don’t take your dog or cat out to some unknown place and try to test their abilities to make it home safely! Trust that they could possibly do it if they needed to, but don’t give them the chance to try!