This past week the Associated Press reported the story of Moon, a Siberian husky, that ran off during a road trip at a rest stop. Her owner Doug Dashiell last saw his pet on April 6 near Railroad Valley, Nevada.

I’m sure he thought he’d never see his beloved d*g again.

A week later Moon wandered up to Alvin Molea’s residence in Ely, Nevada--the same town where Dashiell lives. He took her in, fed her and gave her a place to sleep, and after seeing her collar tag came from the White Pine Veterinary Clinic, he reported her found.

The clinic called Dashiell. He couldn’t believe Moon had walked home. The dog apparently traveled nearly 80 miles across Nevada’s high desert and two mountain ranges over the 7-day period. Other than wearing the “cologne” from a skunk encounter, the two-year-old d*g was none the worse for wear.

Bosco, a gray and white cat, used to show up at the apartment where I lived. He wore a collar with a rabies tag that had the clinic name, so I was able to track down his owner. Turns out, he used to live in that very apartment--but now his owner had moved to another complex two miles down the road. Bosco continued to come visit whenever he managed to hook open the screen door.

Bosco During a Visit

It’s not as surprising that Bosco managed the two-mile trek. But how did Moon do it? And what about the awe-inspiring tales of other pets that find their way home over insurmountable odds?

Psi-training is a term coined to describe the apparent ability of some pets to find their way home over long distances. This ability is celebrated in the story, The Incredible Journey, by Sheila Burnford, of a Siamese cat named Tao who leads furry companions 250 miles across the country to be reunited with their family. That, of course, was fiction.

But a true case, documented by the veterinarian owner, identified the found cat as the missing feline by a bone growth on the fourth vertebrae of his tail (he’d been Xrayed before). This kitty left New York and found his owner, who had moved to California.

Chat Beau’s owners identified him by the scar on one eye and his habit of growling like a dog, after he trailed his family to Texas, 300 miles and four months away from Louisana. Sugar was identified by a deformed left hip joint after arriving in Oklahoma fro California--traveling 1500 miles in fourteen months.

Skeptics will never be convinced, but believers cannot be dissuaded of the many instances in which beloved felines somehow turned up to rejoin families. But don’t leave it to chance…these are called “miracle stories” because they’re so rare. Invest in some reliable pet identification like microchips to safeguard your pets.