My mom lives out in the country and for decades, stray cats or dropped off cats have found their way to her door. Wherever they came from, they likely never returned there because most of our pet cats came to us in such a way. To this day, stray cats still wander in to my mom and dad's home, where they get fed and get taken care of in ways that apparently they had never enjoyed before. So, yes, I firmly believe that some animals choose their own home, and their own people.
I've seen pet shop animals do the same type of selecting, ignoring some people who walk into the store, and going out of their minds with joy over others, hoping those people would take them home with them. Whether it depends on how that person smells, or what they look like, or how they act, I don't know, but animals do seem to have a sort of sense about people and are quite often correct.
