I had a neighbor who rented a house not far from me where the previous owners had a cat. They left but did not take the cat with them. The new tenants didn’t want the cat, so they took him over to the other side of town and let him go, hoping someone would take him in.
Two days later he was back at the house….so they took him further away and let him go and the same thing happened only it took three days to find his way back.
Frustrated, the neighbor took him to the next town some 30 kilometers away and let him go again…this time he wouldn’t find his way back, but a little over a week later, he was on the doorstep, bedraggled and hungry. Defeated, the neighbor took him in and let him stay since the house was obviously “home” to him, and not the people who left him.
I had a similar a similar experience when I was relocating not far from my previous residence, only I had four cats. I got three of them into the car without any drama but the big boy didn’t want to go anywhere and fought me, giving me a deep bite, which got infected and landed me in hospital for a week. During that time the other cats stayed at the new house, but the big boy was missing. Former neighbors said he had come back to his “home” and no attempt to relocate him worked. Unfortunately the new owners had a Rottweiler and the big boy was no match for him, but there was a fire station next door and the firemen took him in and fed him, so he became the Firehouse cat.
This goes to show that a cat can be connected to either the owner, or the actual house. It depends on the individual animal, but my neighbor’s experience was an amazing one since the cat was taken 30 klms away by car but managed to walk home. Must have an inbuilt navigation system!
Aren‘t animals fascinating….?