Butterscotch Hasn’t Got ESP
January 26th 2009 21:00
Like many animal lovers, I am amazed by stories I hear from time to time of cats and dogs being lost for weeks, even months and managing to find their way home or, even more remarkably, be able to find their owners after they have moved house.
On a lesser scale, I read that studies done in Germany and the United States during the 1970s suggested cats have a “homing sense” – an ability to be able to find themselves home if they are lost within a kilometre of their house (If You Cat Could Talk…by Dr Bruce Fogle). I was disappointed to read this because it only confirmed what I had originally thought when Butterscotch went missing: the poor bugger hasn’t got this instinct.
Butterscotch was only located a few blocks from his home but he couldn’t get himself home. Instead, he ended up hanging around a property where another cat lived. As Fogle mentions in his book, cats are opportunists and will go to areas where food is abundant. Hence the other cat’s house, where its owner left food out in the backyard for it to eat. Needless to say, Butterscotch had been making a nuisance of himself, fighting with this cat over the food. Who knows how the story would have ended if it wasn’t for the fact the owner happened to see a lost cat poster in the neighbourhood with Butterscotch’s face on it.
Since he hadn’t wandered very far from his home, surely it would have been easy for Butterscotch to make his way back, ESP or no ESP. Still, he was lucky to be found relatively unscathed. My friend Brett said for Butterscotch to have ended up where he was later found meant he must have crossed a busy street. This particular street is near several nightclubs and pubs so it is busy 24/7. My baby was lucky not to get hit by a car. So miracles do happen sometimes – albeit small ones.
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