4 ms·
My disabled aunt went regularly to Lourdes in France for some hopeful cure. Once, at the moment to leave to the train station, the cat was nowhere to be found.
by tchvil 6y ago
My disabled aunt went regularly to Lourdes in France for some hopeful cure.
Once, at the moment to leave to the train station, the cat was nowhere to be found.
Heartbroken she left her there, and took the train.
9 months later a dirty and skinny white cat stood in front of her door in the very north of France.
The cat crossed the whole country!
- ozim 6y agoI expect that if cat would somehow knew the shortest way back home it would arrive in less than 6 months. What I googled was that cat average walking speed would be 3.3km/h. If a cat would walk for 6 hours a day it should cover like 20km a day. From Lourdes to Belgium it is like 1000km, when one selects walking path on google. With that in mind it should be something like 50 days or 2 months by shortest path. For me that cat was badly lost, well being a cat you don't have restaurants but as in the first paragraph if it would not be lost I would expect it to come back in less than 6 months. In the end it found its way but that would be the same for me if I take the wrong exit at the highway and I am 1 hour later, I was lost for that hour.
- bbarnett 6y agoTo be fair, taking time to stalk and kill prey, slow travel time.
- tchvil 6y agoOr take into account my fledging memory. This is an old story, and 6 months or 9 months didn't make a big difference until now and this math. Will ask my aunt.
- ozim 6y agoWhen I read your comment I thought that yes I probably underestimate how much it takes to hunt for food if you are a house cat, hungry for couple of days. Because one does not get 100% hit when hunting. So it would be more like I knew where to go but I had to take that highway exit because I badly had to use the toilet. Maybe those 9 months would be quite right.
- uh_uh 6y agoHow is this possible? What was the signal that told the cat it was going in the right or wrong direction?
- Tade0 6y agoIf she travelled with the cat it might have picked up all the scents along the way, but I'm not sure if cats are even capable of doing that. Or better: the cat snuck into a familiarly smelling train and got out at the right stop. We used to move back and forth every few months between two cities 1500km apart. Our cat could tell if he was in any of those two cities - he would suddenly start meowing, wanting to get out of the car. He was very consistent in this. He wouldn't do that when we were driving through any other city.