Follow Your Cat - What Felines get up to When They Leave the House | Free Documentary Nature

[Music] the cat is the european's favorite animal in germany alone there are 12 million cats and the city of weimar has more than its fair share when night falls the cuddly pets turn into predators [Music] to their owners it's a mystery what motivates these felines where do they go what do they do when they leave the house [Music] bahas university in weimar a central location between the park and the city the behavioral scientist dunya tison musa has travelled from hanover to conduct an experiment she wants to track the nocturnal wanderings of selected cats in weimar these collars especially designed for cats are essential to her experiment [Music] fortunately you don't have to run after the animals anymore there are gps collars for cats that are light and comfortable they have to get used to the colors for a few days so they will behave normally when the experiment begins go their usual routes and not simply stay at home because they're frightened but as soon as the cats get used to the colors they go outside just like before again the gps transmitters have to be small and powerful they will constantly signal the exact location of the cats over five days it is an experiment in this experiment i'm observing cats that are kept as domestic pets but are able to go roaming when they want to and i'm interested in where these free spirits go i'm investigating cats in weimar because it's a very green town and has a large cat population currently there isn't any scientific study of roaming cats in german-speaking countries first the behavioral scientist meets cat owners who are curious about what their pets do when they leave the house before beginning the experiment she needs to check if the animals are fit enough [Music] now put the collar on here put it carefully around her neck and then tighten it gently of course you should ideally do this relaxing at home [Music] the researcher wants to get a first impression of the cat's character and behavior how would you describe him in general we've never had a cat that was so affectionate he used to be able to jump up onto our laps but he can't do that anymore now he has to grope his way up when we get old we can't jump onto a chair either [Music] here you can see clearly that his ear has been ripped yes he was in a fight he used to get into scraps from time to time and here on the right side of his neck he has a big lymph node he obviously has inflammation somewhere [Music] selects 10 animals old young male female shy cheeky [Music] single pets and group animals do they sometimes bring mice or birds home they sure do more than enough everything everything what exactly well not many birds we forbid that the cats aren't completely obedient but they bring any number of mice home last year at least 50 or 60 mice that's why we suspect things are happening out there that we don't know anything about so we're very interested in what they do [Music] to see each panthers just look relaxed smile casually it's not so easy [Music] we live just across the way near the university grounds our cats know the area well [Music] [Applause] the familiarization phase begins treating their pets to tasty snacks the owners soon get the animals used to wearing the gps collars the cats associate them with a reward test them and discover that they don't restrict movement in any way [Music] the collar has a safety lock that opens in an emergency some of the cats accept technology so readily that they can be fitted with specially developed cameras to record some of their excursions [Music] a cat's eye view of the world [Music] the cameras supplement the gps data with images of the cat's adventures this perspective is also new to the researcher [Music] the park on the ilm in the center of weimar forms the core of the research area [Music] this musa has made contact with cat owners who live in the vicinity of the park and is helped by a colleague familiar with the area [Music] the vet axel poyket not only knows weimar well some of the cats are his patients [Music] he often walks through the park the river ilm divides the park into an eastern and a western section grassy meadows characterize the landscape a cat can hunt very successfully here the grass is just the right height for a cat when it stands up it can survey the entire meadow and with its wonderfully developed sense of hearing it can hear where sounds indicate the presence of a prey a cat can stalk perfectly in this meadow and of course it has the advantage over a small rodent which is much smaller than a cat and can't see as far as that weimar is the unofficial cat capital of germany the town has 65 000 human residents and approximately 10 000 cats the park on the ilm is an artificial landscape created in the 18th century according to goethe's design the poet created a leisure area inspired by nature with bridges ruins and a roman house in the classicist style that was fashionable at the time [Music] the local vet who knows the area well meets his colleague on the university grounds adjoining the park together they define the research area over the next five days the cats will supply the data of their explorations around the clock [Music] this is a family with three cats ernie woolley and henning the interesting thing is that the owners are asking themselves whether henning crosses the street into the park because they think he's very scared of streets this is rudy he's 15 years old he also lives close to the park with an elderly couple he's one of the oldest participants in the research program he's 15. they told me was often injured yes he was brought to me often as a patient these two single cats are zora and lottie zora is the one marked orange i think they must know each other not personally but they're pheromones over the next five days 10 cats will signal their positions every minute 600 data units per second 14 400 per day the cat researcher will gather tens of thousands of data units these she will read and analyze to study the area in which the cats prowl [Music] i'm especially interested in finding out how big their territories are [Music] since we know there are a lot of cats in weimar their territories are probably smaller than say that of a farm cat in the countryside i'm also interested in comparing the behavior of the cats whether for instance the territory of the male cats is bigger than that of the females [Music] lottie was the first to get used to the gps collar using the data tyson moussa will analyze lottie's most interesting paths first lottie is absolute lottie is very fond of people she's sociable and trusting not at all shy that's her character [Music] of course you have to watch out when the little one grabs her that nothing happens one unambiguous signal that lottie gives several times a day is that she wants to go outside she starts staking out her core territory in the garden through scent glands in her head cheeks and pores she scatters her individual pheromones this is her domain i'm very curious to know what she's doing when she's outside and how far she roams on her travels lottie registers the scent marks of other cats thus recognizing her own boundaries during the day she makes lots of little excursions near the house without a specific destination her longest route on the first day takes a westerly direction on the first day of the study around 1 pm dunya tisanmusa discovers something surprising the behavioral scientist is analyzing lottie's data thousands of time and position points i think who live in the same area i was mainly interested in finding out whether they know each other and share a territory or whether perhaps one runs there and the other takes another direction reconstructing this 60-minute excursion from the day's data gives the researcher useful information apparently it's a trip to the border at which the two animals spy on each other without an actual sighting they can smell each other [Music] while lottie first slopes off to the east during the afternoon she soon turns around and follows a zigzag course westwards apparently she's renewing her scent marks and investigating border violations by other cats precisely 12 hours later shortly after 1am zora checks her borders in lottie's direction and recognizes the movements of her rival from the scent marks a cat is very interested in seeing how far it can go for if it just stays where there are no other scent marks it doesn't know if it's able to expand its territory zora's territory is different from that of all the other cats the data doesn't reveal exactly where she lives all the other cats have a focus point on which countless data units overlap zora on the other hand appears to have her home and three other favorite locations why [Music] she has lots of space kind owners and good food actually she should be perfectly content [Music] but she gets disturbing signals from a distance her arch enemy lotte is heading home [Music] hearing the dog lotta freaks zora out cats have extremely good hearing they can direct each of their ears individually and a pocket of skin on the edge of the ear enables them to listen in a precise direction [Music] the dog lotte is a horror for the sensitive zora [Music] no danger but massive stress the dog only wants to play but sora will never get used to the clumsy movements and the hectic wagging of the tail which cats only perform when they're angry the dog takes over her territory when zora lived here on her own she was the queen it all belonged to her she ruled over every room and had several places where she slept that was over when our dog lotta moved in at first she retreated to the upper floors [Music] and then after a long time we managed to establish a sort of peaceful coexistence [Music] yeah we're hoping for some insight into the puzzle at least zora can still retreat to her favorite hedge in the neighbor's garden it's apparently her refuge rudy's situation is quite different he's the senior in the study group and lives conveniently right next to the park on the ilm [Music] the cat is an opportunistic hunter it feeds on the prey it finds easiest to catch rudy used to be able to open all the doors he simply hung on the handle and if he couldn't open the door immediately he kicked it until he was inside but he can't do that anymore and that's a good thing because it was terrifying sometimes when we were watching a suspense movie the cat suddenly shot into the room that was not pleasant that's why it was about two he was the leader of the pack and chased all the other cats he was really strong but he isn't anymore we often see that he's been bitten badly [Music] i'm interested to see how big his territory is whether it's still as large as that of a young cat that's much fitter or whether rudy has reduced his territory because he's no longer physically fit and perhaps has had to give up some of it to other cats during the day rudy walks mainly through the neighbors gardens on the edge of the park in daytime the park is very crowded interesting but dangerous [Music] when a dog invades his territory rudy arches his back he puffs himself up and prepares to defend himself against the aggressor instead of running away [Music] rudy is a true veteran [Music] it's interesting that rudy often makes just short excursions but once a day he deliberately makes a longer sortie which takes between 45 minutes and an hour and he varies these tours sometimes he goes north sometimes south sometimes west so that although he doesn't walk nearly as much as the other cats he still has quite a large territory cats are privileged animals they live with people but also wander away from their homes quite independently when they return they often clean themselves immediately they aren't just removing dirt and combing fur through their rough tongues they're taking in new smells for cats cleaning is simultaneously hygiene analysis and relaxation [Music] rudy's longest journeys during the first three days form a cloverleaf shape with his home at the center [Music] it's a very energy efficient way of controlling a territory rudy is much more efficient than all the other cats which refresh their marks everywhere every day he's very well organized one day here one day there if a cat refreshes its scent marks about once a week that's quite sufficient on the southern edge of the park two more seniors have their home but they're not friends although the family took in the two cats at the same time they have very different characters and live completely different lives the emily is from the house emily is our pet we got her 14 years ago because we wanted a cat then little lars turned up we found him in one of the empty factory buildings around here he got used to us and learned to trust us very slowly he's our little stray the two cats avoid each other whenever they can they only tolerate each other on the terrace where there's food but they remain mistrustful [Music] as emily lived emily spends about 90 of her time in the house she's now so old that she wants to stay indoors that's also her territory if last comes inside she snarls and actually bolts outside it's the other way around that's laza's territory when emily goes outside he chases her away lars doesn't live in the house with the family he sleeps in the shed next door it took a lot of time and patience to win the shy cat's trust he's still very timid and cautious he runs away from disturbances and things he doesn't know [Music] not far from his shed are the abandoned factories that's where he lived as a kitten one of many strays without any contact with humans [Music] i think this is his territory he'll patrol it from time to time and investigate what's new this is where the family found lars as a neglected kitten and he seems to return from time to time [Music] surprisingly although they view lars as a wild cat his territory is almost exactly the same as that of his domestic rival lass is also a stay at home these two have the smallest territory of all the cats in the study and they take turns using it sometimes only for a few minutes [Music] the motherfu some time ago we caught her in a game trap and had her sterilized so that we wouldn't have ten new lasers running around here every year [Music] orphaned strays like those that the animal conservationists take to the vet axel poyket they have to be fattened up first neglect leads to malnutrition severe illness and often death in kittens cats adapted to humans and became domesticated 10 000 years ago left to their own devices they suffer from neglect as a den gets relatively good these ones are doing pretty well but some have terrible open joints or such bad diarrhea that you want to hold your nose i'm used to a lot of things but that's no joke [Music] sometimes you have to make a selection some cats can't survive they're too weak i've given away 300 animals in the past three years but we have 10 animals we can't give away they're not up to it physically or psychologically in the life of young cats there's a short time span that will stamp them for the rest of their lives [Music] cats should be left with their mother from the second to the seventh week even better to the twelfth week then they should get used to humans all the others who are orphaned after that can be nice cats but they remain half wild and will never adapt completely to the life of humans cats have a very fast reproduction rate in just a few years a female cat can become a great great great grandmother with thousands of descendants axel poyket thinks they should be sterilized he can uh feel a mention the amazonia i know a lot of people that think sterilization is mutilations blind in one eye but this one survived poyket has saved many stray cats like mira she's doing well now she needs a new home the cat population is so large in weimar that a cat can't feed itself alone these animals are dependent on humans it's not romantic at all on the contrary wild cats suffer terribly [Music] three cats have found a good home close to bahas university a house with a garden and a caring family the park is just across the street but the backyard and the adjoining university grounds are so extensive that the animals can avoid the street at least their owners hope they do when i was a child i saw our cat being run over by a truck and her eyes bulging out i still had this image in my head after that i said never again after all you really get attached to a cat then it suddenly happened ernie entered our lives and then one thing led to another after annie four-year-old woolly came along and had a kitten henning he's two years old now and also lives with the family the cats have to make compromises in the house and garden it's becoming more and more a coalition and coexistence without having any great fights they're able to agree they tolerate each other but they also avoid each other however the owners don't know what the cats do when they're out of sight [Music] their cats are unusually affectionate [Music] when the owners visit the nearby bauhaus cafe they are kept under surveillance [Music] i think this section of the grounds is their territory the cats are familiar with it it's still part of the neighborhood and we often come here if i'm not careful and mostly i don't notice ernie follows me and it's hard to shake her off she's very clinging sometimes wooly joins her but she doesn't have the perseverance to stay with us at some point she branches off i assume it's because this is the end of her territory our male cat henning hasn't accompanied us so far we're happy about that because we want him to get gradually used to the street and to be careful i think male cats are sometimes a bit stupid at least i've often seen them get run over by volley henning in the case of wooly henning and ernie i'm curious to see whether the three cats who live together meet outside the house or whether as cats often do they rub shoulders in the house and then go entirely separate ways outside the grounds around the cafe are a huge adventure park the gps data shows that unlike the other cats these three are always together outside for a short while each day even though they don't particularly like each other the boundaries between playing and fighting for superiority and status are blurred here [Music] what's interesting is that the three cats roam in a very small area at the same time they can see each other there and have learned to tolerate each other there's heavy traffic on the street in front of their house a dangerous tired road to the park it's difficult for cats to judge how fast cars are travelling but they can learn to cope with the danger [Music] familiar lots of families here have cats and it's dangerous when they try to cross the street firstly cars and bicycles are a completely different category and second just as with humans there are intelligent and less intelligent cats careful and less careful ones i know some cats that actually look left and right before crossing the street they usually get to be quite old the park across the street entices the cats mice rats lizards and birds abound [Music] it's a cat's paradise [Music] it's a mix of games and real mouse hunts sometimes they even hunt their own species the cat's prey is small so they never hunt in groups always alone a mouse is only enough food for one cat once in the park annie and wooly split up but the researcher is tracking them both in the case of the three cats and especially henning i wanted to find out if they cross the street because their owners say henning is frightened of roads and doesn't dare go across to the park but when i look at the data i see that all three cats cross the street and run in the park several times a day the 50 hectare park has a mixed landscape irregular shaped meadows with flower beds and trees relaxing for humans it's an irresistible hunting ground for cats [Music] cats are prowlers they scent the air and listen for their prey they lie in wait to ambush it and then they pounce [Music] there's a house on the edge of the park in which the composer franz liszt once lived annie loves to come here with its many hiding places it's an ideal hunting ground for a cat the numerous visitors don't bother ernie [Music] the gps data shows that annie often crosses the street she doesn't only hear and see the vehicles she locates them with the sensitive pads on her paws [Music] [Applause] of course the domestic cat has adapted to humans not as much as dogs but the cat has certainly adapted it doesn't have to hunt anymore the can opener supplies her with enough food the domestic cat has an energy requirement of about 40 kilocalories that's not very much a little bag of food but she has a hunting instinct that regularly asserts itself cats like to creep up and prowl they like their prey to hide and move do you mention that [Music] to a cat that's not hungry the kill itself is uninteresting but everything else everything leading up to it is exciting and fun on the hunt a cat must concentrate all its senses be mentally and physically focused and cats love that to humans they resemble children big eyes snubby noses round faces cute but cats are beasts of prey efficient fast hunters shrew mice aren't very tasty and the cat usually gives them to its owner apparently they think we are poor hunters food is also the focus in the new housing settlement east of the park klaus wilkin knows the area well every day he goes foraging but in a different way the cat population is especially high in this district there are cats living in many of the houses [Music] our cat is very trusting and isn't scared of humans he often visits the neighbors who probably also feed him everybody loves him but for us that's rather unpleasant because we often don't know where he is sometimes he doesn't come home for days i assume he's been living at neighbor's place home alone lisa is bored she's looking for entertainment and would much rather be outside [Music] scrounging is klaus wilkian's speciality as a classic visitor cat he has a daily routine the popular feline knows where the best food is available everything small and fast moving excites lisa [Music] the large cat population restricts the size of the individual animal's territory even the neighbor's yard is often out of barns but the rivals feeding bowls are simply irresistible violated boundaries are often the cause of disputes [Music] the domestic cat is descended from a desert animal it drinks very little with the sharp papillae on its quick tongue it creates a water spout from which it drinks as from a fountain klaus vulcan doesn't give up he's always trying to extend his small territory even when visiting the neighbors cats are curious they're always testing the boundaries [Music] [Music] [Music] a high density cat population can mean enormous stress for the animals lots of people think i buy myself a cat i have a garden which the cat can use but that's not always the case the garden may already be part of another cat's territory and your cat doesn't dare go out into its own yard especially when a cat is in a new neighborhood it has to position itself and maybe assert its rights that's very stressful and even when it has secured its own territory it has to continue defending it it can't afford to simply stay in the house somebody else might assert claims to the territory supremacy over the food supply is what the dominant cat hopes to achieve in its area everything belongs to the boss but youngsters always pose a threat every meter is contested each animal defends its territory and continuously tries to expand it cats usually settle their territorial disputes with threatening gestures at a distance only rarely does it come to claws and teeth [Music] the weaker animal concedes [Music] when night falls and calm descends upon the turn the cats are at their most active [Music] lottie embarks on a major sortie in the daytime she only makes short excursions now she becomes adventurous she moves faster and more frequently in the dusk than at other times [Music] she crosses the wide street and runs through the long grass towards the river ilm which flows through the middle of the park a short while later rudy also leaves the house the cat's vision gives it an advantage in the dusk the animal opens its slit shaped pupils and only needs one sixth of the light that humans need to see an image [Music] cats cannot see the color red on the other hand they can see multiple shades of blue [Music] all its senses are alert now the cat becomes a superior hunter [Music] this evening the old swing bridge across the ilm happens to be the scene of a border conflict rudy approaches from the east lotte advances from the west the meeting is unintended and unpleasant for both cats only the river separates them they menace each other at a distance neither dares cross the bridge rudy is making one of his highly efficient excursions tonight this time he's patrolling the middle of the park [Music] the river forms a natural boundary it's tempting to cross it but neither cat dares violate the border and declare war for both of them the risk of being defeated is too great [Music] a truce the two cats respect each other's territory at least for tonight [Music] all the cats in the study return home during the night they have adapted their biorhythm at least partly to that of humans [Music] the data shows that lottie is more cautious than other cats she only crosses the busy street in rudy's direction in the twilight her territory borders on zoras in the west and on rudy's in the east [Music] lottie's tracks in the park are still very fresh the very next day rudy crosses the old swing bridge he examines his rivals pheromones for status and claims this is a challenge to lottie [Music] the three cats in the north west section of the park also meet tonight in the university grounds and sit for a while together quite peaceably [Music] now at the feline hour the loners enjoy the company of other cats a mysterious phenomenon that has often been observed by researchers but never explained [Music] [Music] after half an hour the animals split up one of them takes a very special route [Music] henning runs through the park to list's house across a bridge in the direction of goethe's garden house and in a wide arc across another bridge back home the excursion lasts an hour [Music] henning's owners think he only has a small territory but almost every night he runs kilometers crossing lots of streets and only then rests in the yard [Music] of all the cats in the study henning has the largest territory it stretches in all directions and often takes him deep into the park henning's territory is five times bigger than that of the other cats in his family just two years old he's the youngest in the study the data clearly shows that male cats and young animals have much larger areas of activity than females and older cats presumably rudy also used to have a much larger territory [Music] at the end of the research week some of the cat owners meet in rudy's garden the vet alex poycott will present the initial results [Music] let's see what lottie does all day apparently she has an enormous territory that's incredible every day she crosses belvedere goes to the park crosses the street again here amazing yes of course [Applause] this is rudy's territory and this is the park in the middle at the river the paths cross this must be our house exactly we must be there and rudy even goes up there but they patrol the territory different times they alternate and avoid each other lars follows the exact same route as emily and wonders what has she been doing [Laughter] [Music] some of the results really surprise me firstly that my cats go farther than i thought i was hoping they didn't cross the street in front of our house so often and i also find interesting that lars regularly returns to the place he was born in the old factory building where we found him i'm astonished i wasn't expecting what we've just seen i would have thought lottie only had a small radius around the house perhaps including the neighbor's yard but i thought it's impossible she would go so far when i saw that my heart started racing and i'm still worked up when i think that she's so active and continuously crosses the main road whenever we go into town rudy sits on the top of the hill and cries so we always have a bad conscience i was amazed that he follows these paths on his own even to the river in the next main road [Music] these results are extremely interesting now i can show pet owners how big the territory of their cats can be i've analyzed the data roughly with my colleague dunya musa and the results were new to me there are many studies on this subject for behavioral scientists and we vets also have to be behavioral scientists these studies are very interesting and extremely informative in five days just 10 cats have left an almost indecipherable tangle of tracks all the cats in weimar have probably divided up each square meter of the town amongst themselves but the cat's map of weimar is completely different from the one we humans know [Music] i was fascinated by the cat's movements especially where they differ radically from the expectations and descriptions of their owners now it would be interesting to collect the data for all the cats in weimar perhaps over the period of a year or even longer so we can establish truly representative patterns this kind of research on cats is only in the initial stages in the coming decades we'll learn a lot more about these animals i think animals have a character and a soul and um so we are here just as we humans vary a lot have various needs and live varying lives then [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary - Nature

Views: 999,909

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), nature documentary, Free Documentary Nature, Nature, Cats, Cat, Cat Documentary, Cats as Pets, Cats after Dark, Felines, Feline Documentary, Felidae, Domestic Cat, Felis Catus, Cute Cats, Cats of YouTube, Cats of Instagram, Cats of TikTok, Cute Animals

Id: QadUonunflw

Length: 51min 35sec (3095 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 11 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Sweatytubesock]

When I was a kid, we’d run into our indoor/outdoor tomcat (who was awesome) out in the surrounding cornfields/ soybean fields, and he’d pretend not to know us. Asshole.

[u/Captainirishy]

Probably Fighting, sex and torturing small birds and animals to death.

[u/mariegriffiths]

Get rid of Lote dog.

[u/briellegoodie]

Fascinating to see their paths and territories! I know my cats always roamed much further afield than I was comfortable.

[u/pjaako]

boah not available in Germany

[u/eblack4012]

Native species killing machines.

[u/rlprice74]

Hours of footage of repeated anus devouring were filmed during the making of this, I'm sure.

[u/ntwiles]

This looks interesting, but I’m already distracted by the knockoff Pink Panther theme.

[u/zxcvbzxccf1]

Bad kitty! Bad! Nnno!