Cat's amazing eight week road trip back home

2:03pm Friday 16th November 2007

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When Allison Hall gave her cat Dizzy to friends due to increasing work commitments she hadn't counted on her pet's undying sense of loyalty.

A reluctant Miss Hall, from Hollingbury, had kissed the black and white tabby goodbye in June, dropping her off at a new home nine miles away in Telscombe Cliffs.

But Dizzy had other ideas.

In August the homesick moggy disappeared and, after some desperate searching, was given up for dead.

That was until Monday when she finally turned up back at Lyminster Avenue, Hollingbury - after an incredible EIGHT WEEKS on the road.

Miss Hall said she was amazed to see her back and Dizzy was now settling back into her cosy life on the settee.

"I'd taken on more shifts at work and she needed to be cuddled and kissed all the time so I thought I'll give her to someone who could to that," Miss Hall explained.

"I thought she would be ok there.

"But in August I got a call from my friend saying she'd gone missing. It didn't suprise me. She always diced with death. It made me sad but I just thought her luck had run out," said Miss Hall.

Journeying for over two months and travelling a mile for each of her nine lives, Dizzy arrived in Hollingbury on Monday.

"I left for work early in the morning and as I crossed the road I saw her on the steps.

"She came over when I called and then just to check I walked back to the house. She followed and nipped through the door ahead of me."

Dizzy's time on the road eclipsed her memory of domestic luxuries.

"When I got home she wasn't in the house, I thought maybe she's gone again.

"But my son Tom found her under a bush in the garden despite the pouring rain," said Miss Hall.

"She didn't recognise tinned food or biscuits. She'd clearly got used to catching mice and rabbits and things.

It took Dizzy less than a day to take home comforts back into her life - she got the all clear from the vet yesterday, she's back on the tinned food and she's got her old place on the sofa bed.

Dizzy's route from Telscombe Cliffs to Hollingbury would have been a dangerous journey.

It's likely she passed through the residential areas of Woodingdean, Saltdean, Bevendean and Rottingdean where she would be a stranger in town.

She would have had no choice but to cross the A270 and the railway line near Moulescombe Station.

But on the plus side she may have dropped by Saltdean lido and taken in the sights of the South Downs and the 800 metres of forest round Hollingbury castle.

Hazel Tarrent from the RSPCA cattery, Patcham said: "Cats have a mental compass of about 100 acres.

"They can generally navigate themselves to where they need to be within that area.

"If a cat really wants to get home it will instictively develop hunting skills and rapid reaction times.

"It's very unusual to have a cat who can travel this far and pick up the scent of its old territory but it has proved that it's possible."

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