Last night Jasper my 9 month old black cat...Escaped. My wife and I found him this morning huddled against a neighbors heating unit. I know cats have almost no homing ability at all, especially when we live in a development where the houses look identical. He is very traumatized He just lays here on my lap and doesn't move....He continues to shake. There are no sighs of injury. My other cat will not even come close to him...I tried to sit him next to Jasper and jumped up wide eyed and ran away...Juno(other cat)seems very apprehensive of Jasper. Usually these two are inseparable. Anyone else ever deal with this. I am thinking he may just need a day to settle back in, but why is Juno afraid to approach Jasper? Juno is usually the dominate one.

Perhaps your other cat senses that Jasper is scared and in shock. I would just let him settle quietly somewhere for the next few days. He should adjust quickly

Or the cat may smell like other cats.
Is your cat sterilized and is it a female?
You get where I'm going?

lmao! BOWCHICKAWOWOW

With the names Jasper and Juno I assume they are both males. Which still doesnt rule out that possibility!

Maybe Juno knows what really happened to the poor traumatized Jasper

OK.....that makes sense.
Must be just the shock then.lol

btw no homing abilitys????
My sister in law's cat ran back from her house, to my mother in law's house, although I brought her in a blinded weekend bag in my car.
Cat's have excellent homing skills, maybe yours is an exception!

I did some reading and it seems that cats rely a lot on scent, if your pet cat is laying with another cat..which Jasper was when we found him. Then Juno would not recognize the new scent and Jasper would appear almost as a stranger. To a cat smell is just important a sense as sight is to us. Interesting, and yes they are both males. One way to remedy this is to bath them together using the same towel to transfer scent back to each other...seems logical enough...Thanks for your help, it's really appreciated!

They lack homing skills when everything looks the same. Like an apartment building or development...They can smell themselves near by but may become confused when every door looks alike. ...They can get to a general area...a dog can lead themselves to there exact location.

That could be the difference.
The cat i talked about returned to a ground floor building and was used to that surroundings.
It was a half an hour walk though!

lol, my dog can find it's way into the cookie jar, nothing else!

Cookie jar ...I needed that. I once had a border collie(Max). We took him on a fishing trip 20 miles from home. While there he ran off with the neighbors dogs. We stayed a day looking for him..and drove up a few times after. Never found him. A week later we were working out in our yard. My grandfather looked down the street wide eyed, his eyes in disbelief. I in turn followed his gaze to find Max ragged with his tongue hanging out, and tail wagging running in our direction. I was ecstatic, he was the best dog I ever owned.

I just love my dog!
Fits into the family real well.
Doesn't liten to me, just as my wife and my kids!

I hear they can be real bullheaded.