Cat-nav Cracker has eight of his lives left after amazing return home to Jedburgh

The tenacious tomcat left his foster carer’s home in Oxnam and would have needed to cross fields, forests and then navigate over the A68 to reach his owners Iain and Hazel Livingstone’s Gala Hill home.

The couple had sent three-year-old Cracker to stay at a friend’s house after he blotted his copybook by biting Hazel.

But all was forgiven when he turned up in a dishevelled state at the relieved couple’s backdoor.

Hazel, 61, said she’s never heard of a homing cat before but attributes his powers of endurance and exploration to the fact he has six toes on his feet.

She said: “It’s absolutely amazing that he travelled all that way to get back here.

"I took Cracker in as a stray and he had a fit one day and bit me and I ended up having a rare reaction.

"I didn’t trust him anymore so I gave him to a friend at Oxnam who had looked after him before, when I’d been on holiday.

"She kept him in for six weeks at her home and he was fine and then she let him out on a recent Friday night and on the Tuesday morning he appeared at our back door.

"God knows how he did it but he had to cross the main A68 to get to our house at the other side of the valley.

"He’s a very unusual cat because he has six toes on each foot, so he could travel quite a long time so we think he’s just travelled at night, kipped, and then came back here.

"He was looking a bit the worse for wear when he came to the door but where we live we’ve got badgers, foxes, everything, and he’s not scared of anything. He’s just amazing.

"I think he just recognised the terrain to make it back and he had been in the car to Oxnam, so maybe he recognised the area, I don’t know. I’ve never heard of a homing cat before.

"My friend who took him in is missing him but realises that he’s happy back home. He doesn’t go wandering away now, he’s always by my side.

"My old cat died two years ago and the next thing he appeared on the doorstep and he looked terrible and we took him in and got him all his injections.

"I’m keeping him and would never let him go again. He’s some boy, he really is.”