My cousin had a cat for almost a decade and then she got a dog as well. Cat was insulted and moved to the house next door.
An acquaintance of my family had an outdoor cat. The cat would disappear for a week or two, then come home, spend a week or two then disappear again. One time the cat came back with a collar with a phone number on it. They called, it turned out the cat had another "home" he'd go to spend the missing time, the other people were convinced it was their cat that would go and disappear now and then...
Practical context is infinitely superior to clumsy, more complicated systems for day to day usage. That said it's a really poor usage of the Hamburger scale, like using nickels to describe the cost of a meal.