Since there is so little information on cat homing behavior, I started a research survey in 2013.  These are the survey results as of July 2018.  If your cat has ever displayed homing behavior, please consider taking this very short survey.  To take the survey, click here.

Homing Definition

Some lost cats are able to find their way home using homing behavior.  Homing is the inherent ability of an animal to navigate towards an original location through unfamiliar areas.  Cat homing ability is poorly understood, but it may be due to an “unusual sensitivity to the geo-magnetic field of the earth which enables [the cat] to keep a compass fix on their home region regardless of distance and direction traveled” (Beadle 1977).

This survey only includes cats that went missing from a location that was unfamiliar to the cat and the cat traveled back to a location where they were familiar.  Possible homing scenarios include:

• You move to a new home and your cat travels back to your previous home.
• You are traveling with your cat or visiting a strange location (e.g. the vet’s office or a friend’s home) and your cat escapes and travels back to your home.
• Your cat accidentally travels in a vehicle (e.g. gets into a contractor’s truck or a moving van) and gets out at a different location and then travels back home.
• Someone intentionally takes your cat and dumps it somewhere and it finds its way back home.
• You adopt a new cat and it travels back to its previous home.

Arguably, if a cat goes missing from their home and eventually returns home, they may also be using a homing behavior to find their way back home.  However, these are not included in the survey because there is no way to differentiate these situations from other reasons that cats return home (such as being temporarily trapped or hiding in fear), and there is often no way to determine where and how far the cat traveled while lost.

Characteristics of cats that displayed homing behavior

Outdoor Experience

Nearly all of the cats that displayed homing behavior were allowed outdoors (67% outdoor-access) or lived strictly outdoors (25% outdoor-only).  Only 7% of cats were described as indoor-only and some of these may have had previous outdoor experience.  Although I have heard of a few instances of indoor-only cats displaying homing behavior, this seems very rare.  (Note: Escaped indoor-only cats will frequently return to their point of escape, which could possibly be a homing behavior, but the current survey only focused on cats that traveled from an unfamiliar location to a familiar location.)

Age When Lost

Most (58%) cats were adults at the time they became lost followed by 34% young adults.  Without more data for comparison, this could indicate any of the following.  There could be fewer kittens and/or senior cats in the cat-owned population or they are less likely to go missing away from home.  It could also mean that kittens and/or senior cats have poorer homing ability or they have equal homing ability, but they may be less likely to successfully travel home.

Sex and Spay/Neuter Status

Slightly more (63%) male cats displayed homing versus females (37%), and more cats (62%) were spayed or neutered compared to unfixed (38%).  In order to determine if these numbers are meaningful, we also need to know the ratio of owned male vs female cats and the percentage spayed or neutered.  According to the 2017-2018 APPA National Pet Owners Survey, 93% of owned cats in the US were spayed/neutered.  This may indicate that unfixed cats might be more likely than average to display homing behavior, but statistical analysis is still needed.

Cat Personality and Boldness

Cat owners were asked to rate the personality of their cat on a scale of 1 (very shy) to 5 (very bold).  They were asked to do this for their cat’s behavior at home, especially in response to strangers in the home, and away from home (if known).  Cats that displayed homing behavior were rated nearly evenly across all personality types.  Thus, shy cats appear just as likely to display homing behavior as bold cats.  Statistical analysis is still needed to test these results.

Circumstances of Homing

Most (55%) homing incidents took place when a cat was lost away from home.  This included 22% accidental transport (e.g. cat accidentally climbed into car), 19% lost from a location away from home (e.g. lost from the vet’s office or while on vacation), 8% due to intentional disposal (i.e. when someone intentionally takes a cat and dumps it somewhere else) and 5% lost in transit (e.g. lost while traveling with cat).  Almost all cats lost away from home traveled back to their current home, but a few traveled back to a previous home.

The next highest incidence of homing (29%) occurred when the owner moved to a new home and their cat traveled back to the previous home.  In a similar situation, 13% of homing cases involved recently adopted cats that traveled back to their previous home.  A few cats did not fit into any category.  Cats in the “other” category included a few cats that were found by rescuers and were returned to their owners, but then traveled back to the rescuer’s home.  Also, one older cat left home when sick and traveled back to a previous home.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of cats were reported either very familiar or familiar with the location that they homed back to.  Twenty-six percent (26%) lived there more than 5 years and 50% lived there for 2-4 years.  Only 25% of lost cats homed back to a location where they had lived for less than 1 year.

Time, Distance and Speed Traveled

The survey results found that lost cats were missing from 8 hours up to 2.5 years and traveled 0.2 miles up to 80 miles (0.3-129 km).  Only five people reported long distances traveled (80 miles in 3 months, 52 miles in 2.5 years, 38 miles in 6 months, 30 miles in 10 days, and 20 miles in 21 days).  Since this small data set will skew the averages, I calculated the average days lost and distances traveled for several categories (see Table 4).  Hopefully more people will submit survey results for long distance homing and these can be analyzed in more detail in the future.

Most cats (90%) were lost for an average of 5 (median) to 7.5 (mean) days.  This average jumped to 12.2 (mean) days if you looked at cats missing up to four months.  The average distance traveled was 2 miles (mean) up to approximately 4 miles (mean).  Distances traveled were self-reported by the owner and/or measured as straight-line distance between start and end locations.  Therefore, actual distance traveled by the missing cat is an unknown distance longer than the reported distance, and occasionally owner’s may over-estimate distance traveled possibly by using distance traveled by car.  I found that owner’s reported distance tended to be 60% farther than the straight-line distance that I measured.

The average speed of travel was 1.0 mile per day (1.6 km/day).  This average may be a useful to estimate possible distance traveled by a missing cat that may be displaying homing behavior.  However, this is not likely an accurate estimate of actual travel speeds of missing cats because we don’t know the actual distance traveled by the cat and the cat may not have been immediately found once it returned to the home area.  A few cats traveled as fast as 4-7 miles in single day, and one cat traveled 2 miles in 4 hours (a rate of 12 miles/day).

These speeds are considerably slower than those reported by Herrik (1922) in a study where they intentionally transported a cat between one to three miles from home to test her homing behavior (see article Homing Ability of Lost Cats).  This cat traveled an average speed of 0.095 to 0.26 mph (0.15 to 0.4 km/hr) which converts to 2.28 to 6.24 miles/day (3.7 to 10 km/day).  Two factors may account for these faster speeds.  This cat had kittens near weaning age and may have been highly motivated to travel home quickly.  Also, in all but one case, the cat was able to travel home in less than 12 hours and possibly in as few as four hours.  Therefore, she may have been able to sustain a higher average rate of speed.

Possible obstacles encountered while traveling

As part of the survey, I asked people if their cat likely traveled through the following types of areas – Urban (city), Suburban, Rural (country), over a 2-lane highway, over a 4-lane highway, or across a stream or river.  Forty-five percent (45%) reportedly crossed a 2-lane highway while 22% crossed a 4-lane highway.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) reportedly crossed a stream or river.  In some cases, I could view a map of potential travel routes, and most water crossings appeared to be streams or creeks.  However, 16% of cats (where I was able to map the route on Google maps) appeared to have crossed streams/rivers that may have been up to 50 feet wide, and 7% crossed rivers up to 100-300 feet wide.

How to use this information when searching for a lost cat

Unfortunately, there isn’t any research on how frequently cats display homing behavior.  Precht and Lindenlaub (1954) found that at distances of 3.1 miles (5 km) or less, only 60% of cats appeared able to determine the direction of their home, but most cats were unable to do so at greater distances.  The results of this survey found that the majority (73%) of homing excursions were 5 miles (8 km) or less and 88% were 10 miles or less.  Therefore, only 12% were distances greater than 10 miles.  It is certainly possible that more cats attempt to home from farther distances but they may be less successful at getting there.

Based on the results of this survey, homing behavior may be more likely if the missing cat:

• is between 7 months and 10 years old
• was allowed outdoors at their home or lived outdoors
• was lost within 5 miles of their home or a previous home
• lived at their home or a previous home for at least 2 years

Some cats do travel across 2-lane and 4-lane highways and streams/rivers so don’t rule out the possibility of homing due to these potential obstacles.  However, other cats may attempt to travel home, but may be stopped by these obstacles.  If you think that your cat might display homing behavior, use Google Maps to draw a line between the location lost and your home (or a previous home).  Place posters along this route.  Check for any potential obstacles such as 4-lane highways or rivers/streams along the route home and place additional posters in the neighborhoods near these potential obstacles.

A few important notes – please read if your cat is missing

Please keep in mind that there are many reasons why an outdoor-access cat might go missing from a new home and many cats that get lost away from home do not attempt to travel back home.  In fact, many of them do not travel far from their point of escape.  Although cats are capable of traveling 1.0 mile or more per day from where they go missing, in most situations lost cats do not travel far (less than one mile is common), and they may circle around back towards the point of escape rather than traveling in a linear direction.  If your cat goes missing and fits one of the possible homing scenarios above, then consider homing as a possibility, but make sure that you understand typical lost cat behavior and follow all the suggested search actions including large florescent lost cat posters in the neighborhood where they went missing and a physical search of all property for at least 3-5 houses in all directions from the point last seen.   And in some cases a surveillance camera and feeding station and/or humane trap near the point of escape may be necessary.

For more information on lost cat behavior and recovery, see Pet Detective Services and Lost Pet Resources.

If you are moving to a new home or traveling with your cat, consider purchasing a radio-tracking device or GPS collar for your cat.  Learn more in this article.

Literature Cited

Beadle, M.  1977.  Chapter 14: The Little Differences in The Cat: History, Biology, and Behavior.  New York, New York: Simon and Schuster.  Reviews the available scientific research on cat homing behavior as well as psi-trailing.

Herrick, F.H.  1922.  Homing Powers of the Cat.  The Scientific Monthly 14(6): 525-539.

Precht, H., and E. Lindenlaub.  1954.  Uber das Heimfindevermogen von Saugetieren. I. Versuche an Katzen.  Z. Tierpsychologie 11: 485.  I was unable to find an English translation of Precht and Lindenlaub (1954), so I had to rely on the summary of the study written in Beadle (1977).

Many people with a lost pet think that a search dog is the best method for finding their pet.  However, most people tend to have unrealistic expectations and a lack of understanding of how a search dog works.  I previously wrote an article on considerations for Using a Search Dog, and in this series of articles, I plan to go more in-depth on how search dogs are used to search for different types of lost pets starting with lost outdoor-access cats, specifically those lost from their home.  An outdoor-access cat is defined as a cat that is allowed outside and unsupervised.  These are the most difficult type of lost pets to find because of the number of possible scenarios for their disappearance and due to the nature of their scent trails.

A Brief Overview of Scent & Types of Search Dogs

Our cats are constantly depositing scent wherever they go.  Scent theory describes scent as small rafts of skin (i.e. clusters of skin cells) that are constantly being shed from the body and that are then being broken down by bacteria (Syrotuck 2000).  Some scent is deposited with direct contact with the ground while additional scent flows off the top of the body through air currents and travels through the air before being deposited on the ground.  Scent will be stronger in areas where a cat repeatedly walks such as on preferred travel routes throughout their territory or where they rest.  Large concentrations of scent can also collect (i.e. scent pools) where a cat spends a period of time such as a sleeping spot or refuge such as under a porch.

There are several different types of search dogs that may be called by many different names: tracking dogs, trailing dogs, area detection dogs, air-scenting dogs, cat detection dogs or remains detection dogs to name a few.  Scent-specific dogs (generally tracking or trailing dogs) are trained to follow the individual odor of a missing person or animal.  This individual odor is composed of the skins rafts and personal bacteria of the individual and is catalyzed by body secretions of that individual (Syrotuck 2000).  Tracking dogs are trained to follow the scent left by the actual tracks of the missing animal, while trailing dogs are trained to follow the greatest concentration of scent on the ground.  Since scent is also deposited in air currents from the animal, this scent may travel several feet to over 100 feet from where the animal actually walked.  Although there is technically a difference between tracking and trailing dogs, they are often both referred to as “tracking dogs” by the general public.  For simplicity, I will also refer to tracks or trails interchangeably, but if you were to study scent theory, you would find that there can be a lot of variation between the two.  

Area detection dogs (e.g. air-scenting or cat detection dogs) are trained to search an area and locate the concentrated scent of any cat.  Ideally this scent is “air scent” coming off of the actual lost cat, but the dogs may also indicate on a scent pool such as under a deck where the cat hid for a while.  Both tracking/trailing dogs and area detection dogs are usually also trained to indicate on the scent of a deceased cat though some dogs are trained to specialize in just this task.  Most people tend to assume that a tracking/trailing dog is superior to an area detection dog, but once you understand the challenges of tracking a lost outdoor-access cat, you may find that this is not always the case.

Challenges of Tracking a Lost Outdoor-Access Cat that Disappears from His Home Range

Outdoor-access cats usually have a home range where they regularly travel and rest.  This may also be referred to as the cat’s territory or home range though technically it is only truly a territory if the cat defends it from other non-resident cats.  For more information on cat home range size, read this article.  The following illustrations show a very simplified version of a cat’s home range and movements.  The first series of pictures (Tracks 1-6) show a cat regularly traveling around his home range culminating in Track 7, which shows all his travels for that week.

If the cat then goes missing, you can now imagine how difficult it would be for a tracking or trailing dog to follow the scent trail of the missing cat.  A well trained dog can differentiate between an older and newer trail and direction of travel, but this is made more difficult with the many regularly traveled trails that will have an accumulation of scent and trails going in both directions.  

The difficulty of locating the lost cat is made more difficult if there isn’t an uncontaminated scent article.  The scent article is an item that smells like the missing cat that will be presented to the search dog.  This tells the search dog what scent trail to follow.  Many cat owners have more than one cat or dogs in the home, and it can be very difficult to find an item that is unique to the missing cat (i.e. uncontaminated from other pet scents).  If the scent article also contains scents of other cats/dogs that go outside, then the search dog may also follow the numerous additional trails left by these pets.  A well trained search dog will be trained in “missing member searches.”  This is where the search dog is presented with a contaminated scent article and is then allowed to smell all the other pets in the house, and determine which pet is missing.

How Different Probabilities Influence the Effectiveness of the Search Dog

When an outdoor-access cat goes missing from their home, there are different probability categories (or scenarios) for what might have happened to the lost cat.  These include: 1) Theft, 2) “Rescue” (i.e. when someone takes your cat because they think it is a stray), 3) Intentional Transport (e.g. a cat hating neighbor or angry ex-boyfriend kidnaps your cat and dumps him somewhere), 4) Unintentional Transport (e.g. your cat gets into the plumbers van), 5) Trapped (e.g. stuck in the neighbor’s shed), 6) Injury, Illness or Death (e.g. hiding because sick or injured or deceased due to illness or hit by car), 7) Wildlife Kill (i.e. victim of a predator attack), and 8) Displacement (e.g. chased out of their home range or otherwise leaves their home range). When an outdoor-access cat is lost away from home, this is a very different scenario and will be discussed in a future article.  In some search probabilities, specifically theft, rescue, or any type of transport, the tracking/trailing dog has no chance of successfully finding the lost cat because the cat has been removed by a person and there isn’t a scent trail to follow.  A search dog will also be unable to locate a cat outside if the cat is actually hiding or trapped inside the home, and this happens more frequently than people assume.

A tracking or trailing dog might be able to locate a missing cat within their home range (or just outside of it) if the cat is trapped somewhere outside, hiding and injured (such as from a severe cat fight or hit by a car) or deceased (such as hit by a car or killed by a predator).  An area detection dog can also be used to successfully locate a cat under most of these circumstances.  The picture below shows examples of where a cat might be located in each scenario.

Keep in mind that this is a very simplified scenario, and most cats will have a larger home range (usually 3 yards or more in each direction) which contains many more scent trails for the tracking/trailing dog to work through.  In neighborhoods where the houses are close together and fenced, a tracking/trailing dog will have a much more difficult time because he will be unable to follow the trails made by the cat since cats frequently climb under or over fences from yard to yard.  In these cases, an area search dog may be more effective to quickly check each yard for any sign of your cat.

Additional Challenges of Locating the Displaced Cat

One of the more common scenarios for a lost outdoor-access cat is that the cat has become displaced from his home range.  This may occur if he is new to the area and becomes lost or if he is scared out of his territory (such as by fireworks, construction, a loose dog, or another cat) and either becomes lost or is afraid to come back.  As much as we cat lover’s want to deny it, some “lost” cats will also choose to leave their homes when there is a significant change in the household such as a new baby, puppy or roommate.  Some cats are more sensitive than others and may leave due to a change in routine (such as a prolonged injury or illness of their owner) or even a small change in circumstances (such as a remodeled living room or change in brand of cat food).  In either case, the lost cat has left his home range and there may only be one scent trail leading to his new location.  The photo below shows an example of this scenario where the lost cat traveled to the neighbor’s home and got in a fight with their new cat and was chased across the busy road.

When a lost cat is displaced from their home range, it can be challenging for a tracking/trailing dog to work through all the scent trails and scent pools to find the one most recent track that leads away from their home.  This is made more difficult the longer the cat has been missing because the scent deposited throughout the home range might be an accumulation of years of scent while the trail leading out of the home range is only a single scent trail.  How long scent survives is a whole other discussion that I will blog about in a future article.  There has been some research that accumulated scent pools/trails may be viable for up to six months (Phillips 2006) while there is considerable debate on whether a single scent trail lasts for only 12 hours, a week or two, or even a month or more.  Personally I am skeptical of those who proclaim to track scents more than a month old.

If the search dog does successfully find the displaced cat’s scent trail, it is unlikely that they will actually locate the lost cat during the search.  These are referred to as “walk-up” finds and they usually only occur in less than 20% of searches and rates of only 5% or less are not uncommon.  Unless the lost cat is stationary (e.g. hiding, trapped, severely sick or injured or deceased), it is unlikely that the search dog will be able to find the exact location of the cat.  A cat that is being searched for by a dog will likely feel hunted and will evade the search dog team.  In fact, a well trained search dog team will likely stop the track for your lost cat if the search dog indicates that the scent is very fresh and the cat is likely nearby.  Using a search dog in this situation can provide some very useful information including where your cat went after leaving their home range and the area that they are currently hiding out.  This information can help you determine where to put up additional posters, distribute flyers, and perhaps set up a wildlife camera and/or humane trap.  Sadly, many people put all their hope (and often money) into hiring a tracking/trailing dog and then do not follow-up with the necessary search tactics after the search dog leaves.

Literature Cited

Jones, Phillip.  2006.  Scents and Sense-Ability.  Forensic Magazine (online edition).  April/May 2006.

Syrotuck, William G.  Scent and the Scenting Dog.  2000.  Barkleigh Productions, Inc.  Mechanicsville, PA.