Missing Cat Living as Stray Recognizes Owner After 6 Years Apart

Source: © Shutterstock

Julie is the name of a black cat with a white spot on her belly. Years and years ago, she went missing when she slipped out of her home. Unfortunately, her family weren’t able to dedicate their full time to searching for her, seeing as how her owner Jon Gulla was diagnosed with lymphoma a short while afterwards. However, they never gave up hope, which is why they were able to stumble upon a bit of luck very recently.

In short, what happened was that the family saw a post on PawBoost Lost & Found Pets for a black cat with a white spot on the same location as the one on Julie’s belly. As a result, they took a chance on the black cat indeed being their black cat, which is why they headed out to the location where the cat was said to be living. There, Jon called out to Julie, who promptly emerged from her hiding spot for the reunion, which is particularly happy because Jon has been free from cancer for some time.

On the whole, it can be said that Julie has been very lucky indeed. After all, most pets tend not to fare so well when they wind up on the streets, which is the expected outcome because they have never learned the practices needed to survive under such conditions. In Julie’s case, it seems probable that she has been getting help from kind strangers for some time, seeing as how she was showing neither signs of starvation or signs of previous illnesses and injuries when she was reunited with Jon. However, it seems probable that she has encountered a fair number of problems along the way as well, seeing as how she adopted a very cautious attitude while she was staying beneath the shed. As the story goes, she wouldn’t emerge from her hiding spot save to retrieve the food that people were leaving out for her. Something that made her sudden reemergence when Jon called out to her that much more remarkable and that much more heart-warming because it made it clear that she recognized as well as trusted him in spite of everything that had happened.

How Good Are Cats At Recognizing Humans Anyways?

With that said, it is interesting to note that Julie’s ability to recognize her owner in spite of their separation isn’t that unusual for cats. Simply put, cats are actually quite capable of distinguishing one human from another, though the methods that they use aren’t the same as those of dogs.

In short, cats are not good at recognizing human faces. To elaborate, they are so bad at recognizing human faces that when presented with pictures of their owners as well as other humans in a scientific study, their chances of recognizing their owners were no better than 54 percent. For comparison purposes, cats were much better at recognizing other cats, seeing as how that had a 91 percent success rate.

To be honest, this isn’t that surprising. Cats were not domesticated through the same set of circumstances as their canine counterparts, meaning that they developed in different ways. In other words, cats never developed the same ability to recognize human faces that dogs possess because they never faced the same pressure to do so, meaning that their failure in this regard says nothing about whether they care about humans or not.

In fact, it should be mentioned that while cats are bad at recognizing human faces, there is evidence to suggest that they can use their other senses to make up for that particular deficit. For instance, another scientific study revealed that cats are actually quite good at distinguishing between their owners’ voices and the voices of strangers. Likewise, other scientific studies suggest that cats’ sense of smell is more than good enough for them to pick up on the unique scents of their owners. Combined with the ability of cats to recognize patterns, this means that cats are perfectly capable of recognizing their owners, just not by the same means that we humans would use.

Still, the fact that Julie recognized her owner so readily says a lot about the strength of the bonds that can form between cats and humans. Something that makes this story that much more heart-warming.

image sources

  • Missing Cat: © Shutterstock

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