# Skunks have no homing instincts??



## suity (Aug 4, 2009)

Hey folks, this story happened about a year ago but thought I'd make a thread about it to see what people think.

Every caresheet I read about skunks says they have no homing instincts. If they escape, they will apparently not be able to find their way back.

I just don't think this is true?

About a year ago, my female skunk got out one evening. I wasn't home and it was my mum that discovered she was gone. She didn't want to tell me till I got home from work because she knew I would worry like crazy. When I got home she had been gone for at least three hours, my mum told me and I ran out to see her enclosure... opened the door and she was right there!! I was absolutely delighted but so confused, I found the hole in the wire where she had got out and assumed she must have just been in the garden somewhere and just came back in when she was bored...

So I patched up the hole, gave her lots of cuddles and thought nothing more of it.

The next day I woke up to about five phone calls, three from different vets, one from DEFRA, and one from the police! Apparently there had been a mass panic in my town that night, as people up to five miles away from my house saw my skunk in their gardens. They all called the authorities and the local vets, and the vets knew I kept skunks so they called me.

One guy even had a very unfortunate incident, Guinness (my skunk) ended up in his back garden and he sent his dogs out to chase away what he thought was a cat... the dogs all came running back into the house terrified and not smelling so fresh... I managed to get the man's address and went round to apologise to him for what had happened. He didn't mind at all, and actually had caught the whole thing on CCTV and offered to show me. I looked at the time on the video and it was 8.45pm, the dogs ran at Guinness, she turned around and sprayed them and then she ran like crazy in the opposite direction.

I arrived home at about 9.10pm, and that was when I found her safe and sound in her enclosure again. The house the CCTV was taken at was just over 2 miles away, through quite a few different neighbourhoods, across many roads, a few fields and even a small stream. It took Guinness just 25 minutes to run home from her 'incident' with the dogs and get back into her enclosure. She must have ran the entire way, and she must have known exactly where she was going.

I have never been able to understand it, if skunks have no homing instincts, how could my skunk have made a beeline straight for her home, from two miles away in an unfamiliar area and across many obstacles in just 25 minutes??


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## PresqueVu (Jul 27, 2008)

Impressive! You must have been extremely relieved - does seem to suggest she had some way of knowing where home was.


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## slugsiss32 (Nov 14, 2010)

Wow!  I guess nobody can say that Skunks have no homing instincts, they just presumed it because none of their skunks ever found their own way home again after getting out, but Guinness did! 

Hopefully they do have a brain in there somewhere  


Jazz


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## Chicago (Dec 25, 2010)

I've been told by many people and care documents that they lack recall and homing instinct.. doesn't mean they can't learn! My skunk comes running every time when I call him, no matter how far away he is! They're smart. 

I do believe though, that they probably do have some sense of homing; they always know where food and a warm bed is to keep going back to! Lol

p.s. Guinness is a fantastic name!


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