Lost cat found in mineshaft by the family's dog who insisted the owner followed her

Daisy, a dog, lives with Michele Rose together with Mowgli and Baloo, both cats. And then one day Mowgli went missing and he was lost six days at which time Michele Rose had almost given up hope of seeing him again.

Daisy and Mowgli. Picture: Michele Rose.

But she said that she saw Daisy "going berserk". She was running in and out of the woods near her home in Harrowbarrow, a village in East Cornwall, England, UK.

Near Michele Rose's home there is an old mineshaft, part of the Prince of Wales old mine workings, discontinued long ago.

Daisy insisted that Michele followed her and guided her along a footpath towards the mineshaft where she stopped dead in her tracks.

Michele said that Daisy "was persistent in making me follow her, it was amazing."

She added that Daisy "is a superstar, she's an amazing dog."

She had stopped dead at the exact spot where Mowgli had fallen into the mineshaft to a depth of about a hundred feet (30 m).

Michele was able to call the RSPCA who I believe called Cornwall Fire and Rescue but at the time they located Mowgli it became too dark too quickly, and they had to return the next day when they were successful in rescuing Mowgli.

Remarkably, he was uninjured and pulled to safety. While inside his carrier, Mowgli was greeted by Baloo. They did a friendly nose touching greeting - see below.

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Baloo meets Mowgli after his rescue from the mineshaft. Picture: RSPCA.

Michele Rose said that she adopted Mowgli and Baloo in December 2022 as kittens and introduced them to Daisy, the resident dog at that time.

Daisy was a year old when she met the kittens and they made friends immediately and have been inseparable ever since.

Daisy behaves a bit like a mother to the cats and puts up with them. She is very protective of them and in return they love her.

The story is just another little example of how dogs and cats have very close relationships and where the dog can sometimes act as a mother. Many dogs like being mothers and if there are no puppies then little kittens will do just nicely thank you very much.

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Dogs can see and are fooled by optical illusions but cats can't see them

This video seems to tell me that dogs see and are therefore fooled by optical illusions i.e. they see them as real whereas cats do not recognise optical illusions and therefore, they ignore them. We see both reactions in this video.

Dog nonplussed by this optical illusion.

Right now, I do not know for sure how to interpret from these differences. I have never seen a test like this before between cats and dogs and how they react to an optical illusion.

Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which stops it working here. I have no control over this.

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The difference between cat and dog may be the difference between three dogs and one cat i.e. the difference may be on an individual animal basis rather than a species basis although that is unlikely.

Cat cannot see the optical illusion.

A crude deduction might be that dogs are more visually sensitive and aware and cats. But that does not make sense to me. Thinking about it, what may be happening is that dogs believe more in the human environment and are more trusting of it compared to the more independent-minded domestic cat.

Domestic dogs have been domesticated for about 20,000 years or so whereas the cat has been domesticated for about half that time. Perhaps the dog is more in tune with the human environment than the cat even after these thousands of years. And as mentioned they are more trusting. Optical illusions work because the observer trusts that it is real.

They say that the wild cat is just below the surface of the domestic cat. And it is plausible to argue that a wild cat is less likely to appreciate an optical illusion compared to a domestic dog because they are mentally distanced from the human environment. I am, of course, speculating and these ideas have simply flowed from my mind as I am writing this.

I would appreciate input from any visitors to try and explain the difference between cat and dog behaviour under the circumstances.

Note, if the video no longer works let me tell you what it shows. The owner of three dogs and one cat put an optical illusion in the hallway which gave the impression that there was a big hole going through the floor. The dogs observed the hole as genuine and jumped over it and the last dog just stopped before it and looked into the false hole. The cat in contrast, sniffed the object (a rug) and then lay down on it. There was no recognition of it as a hole whatsoever. To the cat it was a rug.