Is it possible for dogs to get lost and cats to find their way back home? Do cats have better memory and directional skills over dogs? If yes, why?
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There are a bunch of true stories of dogs covering massive distances to return to a home.
Cats… well, I don’t know if they can or can’t find their way, but they probably wouldn’t expend the effort either way. Scientists have GPS tracked cats that are allowed outside and they typically have a sort of territorial perimeter that they explore but rarely go beyond.
Cats tend to be more cautious about wandering. They slowly explore the area around their home, only going father afield incrementally as they learn the surrounding area. Dogs… kind of just run off sometimes. Most cats won’t wander a half mile from its house the first time it gets let outside like a dog will.
On average they have very similar senses of direction. If they want to find home, they both can.
Dogs however are generally much more socialized to other people, and are used to being taken away from home regularly. This means that they are very easily distracted, and feel *much* safer being outside of their ‘territory’. They are more likely then to keep wandering until perhaps they are no longer sure where they are. They are also more likely to pursue other animals over longer distances and get lost during that process.
Additionally, at least in urban areas, unsupervised cats are extremely common and people rarely try to capture or interact with them. A loose dog is much more likely to get human attention, and that person might move them or distract them to the point of disorientation, and the dog then needs to be deliberately reunited with its family, even if it absolutely still knew the way home.
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