Every once in a while, a seem­ing­ly mirac­u­lous sto­ry of a dog or cat who has been miss­ing for days, weeks, months, or even years, find­ing his or her way home, pops in­to the news to bal­ance the dai­ly hor­ror that is now com­mon­place.

While the prayers of loved ones have un­doubt­ed­ly worked and been an­swered, re­search in­di­cates that these amaz­ing an­i­mals find their way home us­ing a com­bi­na­tion of an acute sense of smell, vi­su­al mem­o­ry of land­marks, and a pos­si­ble abil­i­ty to de­tect the Earth’s mag­net­ic field.

Cats and dogs use scent glands lo­cat­ed on their paws, cheeks, and flanks to mark their ter­ri­to­ry. Their pow­er­ful sense of smell is used to cre­ate a men­tal “scent map” from the scent mark­ers they leave be­hind, which they can fol­low to find their way back even from a great dis­tance. They can al­so de­tect and fol­low very faint but fa­mil­iar odours, such as smells of home, their own­er’s scent, and land­marks in their neigh­bour­hood, in­clud­ing restau­rants. The sense of smell is the most im­pres­sive tool a cat or a dog pos­sess­es for nav­i­ga­tion, and they use it to fol­low their own scent trails back to where they came from, which is called track­ing.

An­oth­er men­tal map that cats and dogs seem to be able to con­struct is that of their vi­su­al sur­round­ings. When you take your dog out for walks, or watch your cat roam­ing and ex­plor­ing her ter­ri­to­ry, you may no­tice that they don’t on­ly keep their noses to the ground, but al­so spend a lot of time look­ing around. Dur­ing their dai­ly ex­cur­sions, dogs and cats are ob­serv­ing their en­vi­ron­ment and build­ing a map of the ter­ri­to­ry in their minds through a process called la­tent learn­ing. Their strong vi­su­al mem­o­ry al­lows them to recog­nise and re­mem­ber fa­mil­iar land­marks, such as trees, build­ings, and roads. Some way­ward dogs like­ly ori­ent them­selves by recog­nis­ing the rel­a­tive po­si­tion of a fa­mil­iar land­mark to their home and their cur­rent lo­ca­tion rel­a­tive to that same land­mark. Us­ing those points of ref­er­ence, they are then able to trav­el a rather di­rect path home.

Mi­gra­to­ry birds, salmon, and whales are a hand­ful of an­i­mals known to tap in­to the Earth’s mag­net­ic field, though the or­gans con­trol­ling mag­ne­tore­cep­tion are not yet well un­der­stood. Some re­search sug­gests that cats and dogs may al­so pos­sess this per­plex­ing abil­i­ty. It is be­lieved that they can sense the Earth’s ge­o­mag­net­ic field, us­ing it as a built-in com­pass to ori­ent them­selves and find their way home. Stud­ies have ob­served that some dogs will take a short run along the North-South ax­is to get their bear­ings be­fore head­ing home, much like a com­pass.

These in­cred­i­ble jour­neys are be­com­ing less com­mon as mod­ern dog breeds are bred to be close to their own­ers, and with the cat over­pop­u­la­tion cri­sis, a lot of own­ers are choos­ing to keep their cats sole­ly in­doors. Most pets no longer have the op­por­tu­ni­ties to ex­plore their neigh­bour­hood, to learn, get ex­pe­ri­ence, or to prac­tice hom­ing from dis­tant, un­fa­mil­iar places.

When pets get lost, it’s a ter­ri­fy­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for them, which is why it’s im­por­tant to keep your pet from wan­der­ing away. You can help by en­sur­ing that the pet does not have to find the way home in the first place, but al­so by mak­ing sure that your pet is prop­er­ly iden­ti­fied with a col­lar con­tain­ing con­tact in­for­ma­tion and/or a mi­crochip.

My 15-year jour­ney of writ­ing ar­ti­cles for the Your Pet & You col­umn, cour­tesy of the Trinidad Guardian, has come to an end, and I hope the knowl­edge and in­sight shared over the years have helped lead some of you home to where your heart – your pet – is.

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