Last time Nysse was gone for a long time, I ordered a GPS tracker for him. Today was the first time we used it “for real”.

I’ve mostly been using it to get an idea of how far he usually ranges. It turns out that his usual territory is quite small – on a normal day he wanders maybe three yards away from ours at most. (That’s yards as in enclosed areas around houses, not as in imperial measurement units.) So when he followed me all the way to the school, that was way beyond his usual territory. No wonder he got lost and took forever to get back. The new house rule is to not let Nysse follow us away from home again.

He’s been away overnight on his own since those first times, but with nobody to lead him far astray, he’s always been back by morning. Seconds after one of us opening the doors, he’s come rushing in.

Today he didn’t appear. When I checked his location in the tracker app, he turned out to be further away than we’ve ever known him to go, far further than the occasions when he’s gotten lost – over a kilometre from home. We figured it would take him forever to find his way back from where he was, so we went looking for him. Unfortunately the tracker decided to act up just when we wanted it most and didn’t update his location very well, but it led us to the right area at least. With the help of the tracker’s ability to make noise on demand, and a friendly lady in the neighbourhood, we found Nysse after all – curled up under the lady’s front stairs.

I guess after some time he’ll learn the neighbourhood even better and won’t get lost any more. But in the meantime, I try not to let him out without it.