When the dust settles

How a lost cat was guided home with the help of carpet dust…

Mia

Mia was found abandoned in a garden, crying loudly because she was in labour and had nowhere to go.  CAT77 rescued Mia and she raised three kittens who all soon found good homes.  However, it took an entire year in foster care before someone wanted to adopt Mia, like many black cats, seemed to be left behind. So, after a home check, Mia was taken to her new family on a Friday night.

The next morning the telephone rang… Mia had escaped through the cat flap during the night because an internal door had been left open. Her new owner had searched everywhere and called her for over two hours, but there was no sign of Mia. We set out immediately, searched the area with the help of friends and called her name, but there was still no sign of her. It was bitterly cold, there was heavy snowfall during the night. Posters were put and neighbours leafletted. We feared we would never see Mia again; the cat had not been in her new home long enough to recognise it and find her way back.

Asking around CAT77’s many experienced volunteers for advice, one branch had just come back from the successful recovery of a lost cat, and still excited about the success of that rescue, suggested the following: the fosterer should take the contents of her vacuum cleaner bag and empty it on a big plastic sheet in the woman’s garden and leave it there as long as there was no rain or snow forecast. The fine dust can rise high up and travel over walls and fences reach the cat’s delicate nose and indicate the direction “home”. Surprisingly, this trick has worked several times, sometimes within an hour. So, it was back to the woman’s garden, this time equipped with the dust and shoes and clothes that carried the fosterers scent, together with a large kennel and the cat’s blankets, all still smelling of home. We made trails from the dust heap leading to the kennel and onto the bedding, making a path from cardboard to keep the dust dry. We even filled up a hanging basket with the precious powder.

After six days there was finally a breakthrough. When the owner went into her garden in the morning, she saw Mia dashing out of the kennel! What a relief to know that Mia was okay – but now she needed to be captured. Although Mia was the most easy-going, affectionate domestic-born cat, her inbred wild instincts had taken over in this crisis situation. Thus, she likely wasn’t going to approach anyone for a while, perhaps not even for weeks. Meanwhile, she had become very thin; so, the obvious solution was to set a baited trap and Mia was caught the same night.

© Cat Action Trust 1977