Recognizing your own pet when out of context

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I know many Aspies have trouble recognizing people and I do, also. A few years ago, one of my cats slipped out the door when I was leaving. I did not see her get out. The next day, after I realized she was gone from home, I was outside and saw a woman with a cat carrier. I asked her "is that a stray cat?". She said she found her yesterday and she was a very sweet cat. She let me look in the carrier and asked "is this your cat?". I wasn't sure. I panicked and luckily said "yes". It turned out to be my cat (a shorthair tabby) but outside of my house or on the vet table, I don't think I would recognize her.

I was just wondering because I thought recognizing people was related to their face or maybe eye contact.

Not unusual at all. I get around town a lot, and used to work in some very public positions. I can almost never recognize anyone, unless I already know them extremely well, out of the normal context where I usually encounter them. Usually, I do know that I know them, but I just can't remember from where. And names? Forget it. It takes me dozens of times using someone's name before I can recall them readily, but only in context, not anywhere else.

I think I would know mine because I pay more attention to animals than to people. Could be wrong though. I would definitely know if I picked them up.

That's how I am as well. I don't think I would have a problem with my pet, but when it comes to people I know I'm horrible at recognizing them when out in public. I'm not great at remembering people's names and faces in general, for some reason I seem to remember the tone/sound of someones voice better than I do their name/face. Unless, of course, this is a person that I know very well.

I think I could... but I also have fairly distinctive animals... both of my cats have unusual physical traits (one's hair is all black with white tips, the other is a tuxedo cat with one green eye that glows red and one blue eye that glows green)... and I have exotics a bearded dragon that has sage green in her pattern and red (rare combination), A chinese water dragon with unusual striation, and an albino amenalated corn snake with an arrowhead pattern on her head...

That being said... I have always been able to pick out animals better than people...even my old yellow dog, george.

How can you not recognize your own pet and how can you discover they're missing only the day after - beats me. And this from someone with prosopagnosia like me. One of my cats has an almost identical twin (stray), and I could never confuse between the two.

My cats do not have distinguishing features. The one who got out was a shorthair tabby. I also have a medium long hair tabby and a black shorthair cat that is the classic "Halloween cat". The black "Halloween cat" came from the Louisiana ASPCA when my daughter lived in New Orleans.

The responses have been really interesting. I have trouble recognizing people and animals but that seems really unusual.

Yes. I feel guilty. I work the evening shift. She got out when I was leaving for work. When I got back I thought she was asleep in a secluded spot and went to bed. It was when I got up that I could not find her.

Yes, I did imagine you worked night shifts. Don't feel bad about it - it happened to me that I thought my cat was home once, and the poor thing had been left outside.

Cats, like humans, have very disctintive faces. You can't confuse them if you're used to seeing them. The fact that there's no hair, clothes or conversation to distract me, actually helps me learn their features. And it's hard, because most strays here are from the same families, so a few look very much alike. Even so, I know each stray's face by heart and could never confuse between them. And there are about 30 that I feed, half of those only occasionally, but still I know each of them by heart. Of course it helps that I love the strays a lot more than I love humans.

We used to have a black and white tuxedo cat that looked exactly like our neighbors black and white tuxedo cat. I could not tell them apart, but my daughter could. Because both were mainly outdoor cats, when we left the back door open sometimes their cat would come inside our house. I didn't know that until one day he came in and hopped up on the counter to eat some of the cat food that was out for our cat. My daughter said "That's Jimmy, that's not our cat!" and that cat apparantly understood her because he hopped down and hightailed it out of there.

I saw a black and brown dog being chased down the street with his tail between his legs by 2 bigger dogs and chuckled a bit--until they got closer and I realized it was my female dog (spayed, btw), who had managed to find yet another weak spot in the fence. She and her brother look a lot alike, so I mix them up sometimes. But Lena's "nearscented". I always know it's her without having to look when she puts her cold, wet nose right against my leg.

We had a beagle that got out when I had went to my parents' house and I had taken the dog with me. There was a man down the road from there that had beagles and he picked up strays and such. I went down there and looked at one the he had just recently picked up and now, I'm thinking that was our dog, never saw him again (the dog), but at the time, I honestly didn't know.

When I'm petting them and looking into their eyes, it is one of my few, safe places, but, if they misbehave, I can't remember their names.

I think I would recognize my kitties anywhere because I see them a large part of the day (and I can focus more on animals than on people).

My gerbils are another story. They are adorable, but there are probably a billion other gerbils that look just like them, and they would ALL be running from me (including my own! lol)