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

The cat is the favorite animal of Europeans in Germany alone there are 12 million cats and the city of Weimar has more than its share When night falls the tender pets become predators for their owners It is a mystery

what

motivates these

felines

where

they

go

what

what

they

do

when

they

leave

the

house

bahas university in weimar a central location between the park and the city behavioral scientist dunya tison musa has traveled from hanover to conduct an experiment wants to track the nighttime walks of selected cats in weimar these particular collars designed for cats are essential for

your

experiment fortunately you no longer have to run after the animals there are gps collars for cats that are light and comfortable they have to get used to the colors for a few days so that they behave normally

when

the The experiment begins, they

follow

their usual routes and do not simply stay at home because they are scared, but as soon as the cats get used to the colors, they go out as before.

GPS transmitters have to be small and powerful, they will constantly indicate the exact time. Location of cats for five days is an experiment in this experiment I am looking at cats that are kept as

house

pets but can roam whenever they want and I am interested in knowing where these

free

spirits go. I am researching. cats in weimar because it is a very green city and has a large cat population currently there is no scientific study on stray cats in german speaking countries first, the behavioral scientist meets with cat owners who are curious to know what what

your

pets do when they

leave

the house house before you start the experiment she needs to check if the animals are fit enough now place the collar here carefully put it around your neck and then squeeze it gently of course ideally you would do this relaxing at home, the researcher wants to have a first impression. about the cat's character and behavior, how would you describe it in general?

We have never had a cat that was so affectionate. He used to be able to jump on our laps, but he can't do that anymore now he has to grope around. above when we get old we can't jump on a chair either here you can clearly see that his ear has been torn off yes he was in a fight he got into trouble from time to time and here on the right side of his neck he has a large lymph node obviously it has inflammation somewhere select 10 animals old young male female shy cheeky single pets and group animals sometimes they bring mice or birds home I'm sure they do more than enough everything everything exactly good not many birds we prohibit that Cats are not completely obedient, but last year they brought any number of mice home, at least 50 or 60 mice, so we suspect there are things going on that we know nothing about, so we are very interested in what they do. to see each one the panthers just look relaxed smile casually it's not that easy we live right across the street near the university grounds our cats know the area well begin the familiarization phase by treating your pets to tasty treats the owners soon accustom the animals to using GPS collars cats associate them with a reward try them and discover that they do not restrict movement in any way the collar has a safety lock that opens in case of emergency some of the cats accept the technology so easily that they can be equipped with specially developed cameras to record some of their excursions a cat's view of the world the cameras complement the GPS data with images of the cat's adventures this perspective is also new for the researcher the park in The cinema in the center of Weimar constitutes the core of the research area.

This muse has contacted cat owners who live around the park and is helped by a colleague who knows the area. Veterinarian Axel Poyket not only knows Weimar well. Some of the cats are his patients. He usually walks through the park. The Ilm River divides the park into an eastern and western area. Grassy meadows characterize the landscape. Here a cat can hunt with great success. The grass is the right height for a cat. When he stands up, he can look out over the entire meadow with his wonderfully developed sense of sight. By listening to it you can hear where the sounds indicate the presence of prey, a cat can lurk perfectly in this meadow and of course has the advantage over a small rodent that is much smaller than a cat and cannot see as far as that weimar It is the unofficial cat capital of Germany.

The city has 65,000 human inhabitants and approximately 10,000 cats. The park at 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 classicist-style house that was fashionable at that time, the local veterinarian, who knows the area well, meets with his colleague on the university grounds adjacent to the park. Together they define the research area for the next five days the cats will provide the data of their explorations in the surroundings the clock this is a family with three cats ernie woolley and henning the interesting thing is that the owners wonder if henning crosses the street to the park because they believe that he is very afraid of the This street is Rudy, he is 15 years old and also lives near the park with an elderly couple.

He is one of the oldest participants in the research program. He is 15 years old. They told me that he often got hurt. Yes, he was often brought to me as a patient. These two single cats are Zora and Lottie Zora is the one marked in orange. I don't think they should meet in person, but they are pheromones for the next five days. 10 cats will signal their positions every minute. 600 units of data per second. 14,400 per day. The cat researcher will collect tens of thousands of units of data. Read and analyze to study the area where cats roam.

I am especially interested in how large their territories are, since we know that there are many cats in Weimar, their territories are probably smaller than, for example, that of a farm cat in the countryside. I am also interested in comparing the behavior of the cats, if for example the territory of male cats is larger than that of females. Lottie was the first to get used to the GPS collar using the data. Tyson Moussa will analyze the most interesting things about Lottie. The first paths Lottie is absolute. Lottie loves people very much. She is sociable and confident.

Not at all shy. That's her character. Of course, you have to be careful when the little one grabs her so that nothing happens to her. An unmistakable sign that Lottie gives several times a day is that. She wants to leave her, she begins to delimit her central territory in the garden through scent glands in her cheeks and the pores of her head, she spreads her individual pheromones, this is her domain. I am very curious to know what he does when he is outside and how far he wanders on his trips lottie records the scent marks of other cats thus recognizing his own limits during the day he makes many small excursions near the house without a specific destination his longest route the first day heads west the first day of the year 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 they live in the same area what else What interested me was to know if they know each other and share a territory or if perhaps one runs there and the other goes another direction, reconstructing this 60-minute excursion from the day's data gives the researcher useful information, apparently it is a trip to the border. in which the two animals spy on each other without being seen they can actually smell each other while Lottie first leans towards the east during the afternoon she soon turns around and

follow

s a zigzag course towards the west apparently she is renewing her scent marks and investigating violations of borders by other cats exactly 12 hours later, shortly after 1 a.m. m., Zora checks her borders in the direction of Lottie and recognizes her rival's movements by the scent marks.

A cat is very interested in seeing how far she can go if she simply stays where there are no other scent marks. She doesn't know if she can expand. her territory zora's territory is different from that of all the other cats the data does not reveal exactly where she lives all the other cats have a focus point on which countless units of data overlap zora, on the other hand, seems to have her home and three other favorite places because it has a lot of space owners and good food she should actually be perfectly happy but she receives disturbing signals from a distance her archenemy Lotte heads home listening to the dog Lotta scares Zora cats have extremely good hearing they can direct every one of their ears individually and a pocket of skin on the edge of the ear allows them to listen in a precise direction the dog lotte is a horror for the sensitive zora there is no danger but enormous stress the dog just wants to play but sora will never get used to it to the clumsy movements and frantic wagging of the tail that cats only make when they are angry the dog takes over their territory when zora lived here alone she was the queen everything belonged to her she ruled every room and had several places where she slept that is It ended when our dog Lotta moved here at first, retreated to the upper floors, and then after a long time we managed to establish a kind of peaceful coexistence.

Yes, we hope to have some idea of ​​the puzzle. At least Zora can still retreat to her favorite hedge in the forest. The neighbor's garden is apparently his refuge. Rudy's situation is quite different. He is the oldest in the study group and lives conveniently right next to the park. In the movie, the cat is an opportunistic hunter. He feeds on the prey that are most convenient for him. easy to catch rudy used to be able to open all the doors he just hung on the handle and if he couldn't open the door immediately he kicked it until he was in but he can't do that anymore and that's a good thing because sometimes it was scary when we were looking. a thriller movie the cat suddenly came into the room that was not nice that's why it was around two o'clock he was the leader of the pack and he chased all the other cats he was very strong but he is not strong anymore, we often see that he has been bitten.

I am very interested to see how big his territory is, if it is still as big as a young cat who is much fitter or if Rudy has reduced his territory because he is no longer in good physical shape and perhaps there is had to give up part of it for other cats during the day rudy mainly walks through the neighbors' gardens at the edge of the park during the day the park is very crowded interesting but dangerous when a dog invades his territory rudy arches his back swells and he prepares to defend himself from the aggressor instead of fleeing, rudy is a true veteran, it is interesting that rudy often goes on short excursions, but once a day he deliberately goes on a longer outing that lasts between 45 minutes to an hour and varies these tours He sometimes goes north, sometimes south, sometimes west, so even though he doesn't walk as much as the other cats, he still has a pretty big territory.

Cats are privileged animals. They live with people but also move away from their homes quite independently. When they return, they often clean themselves immediately. By simply removing dirt and combing the fur with their rough tongues, they are absorbing new cat odors. Cleaning is simultaneously an analysis of hygiene and relaxation. Rudy's longest trips during the first three days form a cloverleaf with his house in the center. It is a very efficient way from an energy point of view. To control a territory Rudy is much more efficient than all the other cats who update their markings everywhere every day.

It is very well organized a day here a day there if a cat refreshes its scent marks approximately once a week that is enough at the south end of the park two more elderly people have their home but they are not friends although the family welcomed the two cats at the same time have very different characters and live completely different lives emily is from the house emily is our pet we have had her 14 years ago because we wanted a cat, then little Lars appeared, we found him in one of the empty factories around here . He got used to us and learned to trust us very slowly.

He is our little stray. The two cats avoid each other whenever they can. They only tolerate each other on the terrace where there is food, but they remain distrustful, since Emily lived Emily spends around 90% of her time in the house. Now he's so old that he wants to stay inside, that's his territory too. If the last one to enter, she growls and runs away. Outside it's the other way around that's Laza's territory when Emily goes out he chases her away Lars doesn't live in the house with the family he sleeps in the shed next door it took him a lot of time and patience to gain the trust of the shy cat who is still very shy and cautious he runs away from the riots and the things he doesn't know not far from his shed are the abandoned factories that's where he lived when he was akitten, one of many strays without any contact with humans, I think this is his territory.

We will patrol it from time to time and investigate what's new. This is where the family found Lars as an abandoned kitten and surprisingly he seems to return from time to time, although they see Lars as a feral cat, his territory is almost exactly the same as his domestic rival also staying at home. . These two have the smallest territory of all the cats in the study and take turns using it sometimes for just a few minutes. Some time ago we caught her in a game trap and had her. sterilized so we wouldn't have ten new lasers running around here every year.

Stray orphans like the ones animal conservationists take to the vet. Axel Poyket. First you have to fatten them up. Neglect leads to malnutrition. Serious illness and often death. Kittens cats adapted to humans and were domesticated 10,000 years ago left to their own devices suffer from abandonment as a den becomes relatively good. These do quite well, but some have terrible open joints or diarrhea so bad you want to hold your nose. I'm used to a lot of things, but that's no joke, sometimes you have to make a selection. Some cats can't survive, they are too weak. I have given away 300 animals in the last three years, but we have 10 animals that we can.

We do not reveal that they are not up to par physically or psychologically in the lives of young cats. There is a brief period of time that will mark them for the rest of their lives. Cats should stay with their mother even from the second to the seventh week. best by the twelfth week then they should get used to humans all the others who are orphaned after that may be good cats but they are still half wild and will never fully adapt to human life cats have a very fast reproduction rate in In just a few years, a cat can become a great-great-grandmother with thousands of descendants.

Axel Poyket thinks they should be sterilized. He can sense a mention of the Amazon. I know a lot of people who think that sterilization is blind mutilations of one eye, but this one survived. Poyket. He has saved many stray cats like Mira. She is doing well. She now she needs a new home. The cat population is so large in Weimar that a cat cannot feed itself. These animals depend on humans. It is not romantic at all, on the contrary, wild cats suffer. terribly three cats have found a good home near the university bahas a house with a garden and a loving family the park is right across the street but the backyard and adjoining university grounds are so extensive that the animals can avoid the At least shut up their owners I hope they do when I was a kid I saw our cat getting hit by a truck and his eyes were popping out of their sockets.

I still had this image in my head after that I said never again after all you really get attached to a cat then suddenly it happened. Ernie came into our lives and then one thing led to another after four-year-old Annie Woolly came along and had a kitten. Henning is now two years old and also lives with the family. Cats have to make allowances in the house and garden. more and more a coalition and coexistence without having big fights they are able to come to an agreement they are tolerated but also avoided however the owners do not know what cats do when they are out of sight their cats are unusually affectionate when the owners visit the nearby bauhaus cafe they keep them under surveillance i think this section of the land 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 especially i don't notice that ernie follows me and it's hard to get her off of, she's very clingy, sometimes Wooly joins her but doesn't have the perseverance to stay with us at some point she strays, I guess it's because this is the end of her territory.

Our male cat Henning has not accompanied us until now, we are happy because we want him to gradually get used to the street and for him to be careful. I think that male cats are sometimes a little stupid, at least I have seen them many times run over by Volley Henning in the case of Wooly Henning and Ernie I am curious to know if the three cats that live together are outside the house or if As cats often do, they rub shoulders in the house and then separate completely outside the house. The grounds around the cafe are a huge adventure playground.

The GPS data shows that, unlike the other cats, these three are always outside together for a while each day, although they don't particularly like each other. The limits between playing and fighting for superiority and status. here they are blurred the interesting thing is that the three cats wander in a very small area at the same time you can see them there and they have learned to tolerate each other there is a lot of traffic on the street in front of their house a dangerous and tiring road to the In the park it is It's hard for cats to judge how fast cars are traveling, but they can learn to deal with danger.

Many families here have cats and it is dangerous when they try to cross the street. Firstly, cars and bicycles are a completely different category and secondly, As with humans, there are intelligent and less intelligent, careful and less careful cats. 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 attracts cats, mice, rats, lizards and birds abound. It is a paradise for cats It is a mix of games and real mouse hunts Sometimes they even hunt their own kind The cat's prey is small so they never hunt in groups Always alone One mouse alone is enough food for one cat One once in the park annie and wooly split but the investigator is tracking them both in the case of the three cats and especially henning.

I wanted to know if they cross the street because their owners say that Henning is afraid of the roads and doesn't dare cross to the park, but when I look at the data I see that the three cats cross the street and run in the park several times a day. 50 hectare park has a mixed landscape irregularly shaped meadows with flower beds and relaxing trees for humans it is an irresistible hunting ground for cats cats are prowlers they smell the air and listen to their prey they lie in wait to ambush them and then There is a house on the edge of the park where the composer Franz Listzt once lived.

Annie loves to come here with its many hiding places. It is an ideal hunting ground for a cat. The many visitors do not bother Ernie. The GPS data. show that Annie often crosses the street not only hears and sees vehicles, she locates them with the sensitive pads on her paws, of course, the domestic cat has adapted to humans not as much as to dogs, but the cat has certainly adapted Adapted, she no longer has to hunt. The can opener provides her with enough food. The domestic cat needs about 40 kilocalories of energy, which is not much for a bag of food, but she has a hunting instinct that is regularly asserted.

Cats like to sneak up and sneak around. They like their prey to hide and move. You mention that for a cat that is not hungry, killing itself is not interesting, but everything else, everything leading up to it, is exciting? and fun in hunting a cat must concentrate all its senses be mentally and physically focused and cats love that to humans they look like children big eyes flat noses round faces cute but cats are beasts of prey fast efficient hunters shrews mice are not 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 to look for food , but in a different way the cat population is especially In many of the houses in this district cats live.

Our cat is very trusting and is not afraid of humans. He often visits the neighbors, who probably also feed him. Everyone wants it, but for us that is quite unpleasant because we often don't do it. i know where he is sometimes he doesn't come home for days i guess he's been living at a neighbor's house home alone lisa is bored she's looking for entertainment and would rather be outside hanging around it's klaus wilkian's specialty as a classic visiting cat he has a daily visit routine the popular feline knows where the best food is available everything small and fast moving excites lisa the large feline population restricts the size of the individual animal's territory even the neighbor's yard is often off limits barns but the feeders of rivals are simply irresistible the limits are violated often the cause of disputes the domestic cat descends from a desert animal drinks very little with the sharp papillae of its quick tongue creates a stream of water from which it drinks as from a source klaus vulcan does not give up he is always trying to expand his small territory even when visiting the neighbors cats are curious, they are always testing the limits a high density cat population can mean enormous stress for animals many people think that me I buy a cat I have a garden that the cat can use but that is not always the case, the garden may already be part of another cat's territory and your cat does not dare to go out into its own garden, especially when a cat is In a new neighborhood, you have to position yourself and perhaps assert your rights, which is very stressful. and even when it has secured its own territory it has to continue to defend it, it cannot afford to simply stay in the house, someone else could claim the territory, supremacy over the food supply is what the dominant cat hopes to achieve in its area . everything belongs to the boss but the young always pose a threat every meter disputed each animal defends its territory and continually tries to expand it cats usually resolve their territorial disputes with threatening gestures from a distance, they rarely reach the point of claws and teeth the weakest animal recognizes that when night falls and calm descends on the curve the cats are at their most active lottie embarks on a major outing during the day she only takes short excursions now she becomes adventurous she moves faster and more frequently at dusk than at night other times he crosses the wide street and runs through the tall grass towards the ilm river that runs through the middle of the park shortly afterwards rudy also leaves the house the cat's vision gives him an advantage in the twilight the animal opens his pupils in the shape of a slit and it only needs one sixth of the light that humans need to see an image cats cannot see the color red on the other hand they can see multiple shades of blue all their senses are alert now the cat becomes a superior hunter tonight The old swing bridge that crosses the film turns out to be the scene of a border conflict.

Rudy approaches from the east. Lotte advances from the west. The meeting is involuntary and unpleasant for both cats. Only the river separates them, threatening each other from a distance, neither of them daring to cross. Rudy the bridge is making one of his highly efficient excursions tonight this time he is patrolling the middle of the park the river forms a natural boundary it is tempting to cross it but neither of the cats dare to violate the border and declare war for both of them the risk of being defeated is too much of a truce two cats respect each other's territory at least for tonight all the cats in the study return home during the night have adapted their biorhythm at least in part to that of humans the data shows that Lottie is more cautious that other cats only crosses the busy street towards rudy at twilight his territory borders with zoras in the west and with rudy in the east lottie's footprints in the park are still very fresh the next day rudy crosses the old swing bridge examines the pheromone status of his rivals and states that this is a challenge for the three cats in the northwest section of the park also meet tonight on the university grounds and sit together for a while in peace now, at cat hour , the loners enjoy the company of other cats, a mysterious phenomenon that has often been observed by researchers but never explained.

After half an hour the animals separate, one of them takes a very special route, Henning runs through the park to the List's house, crosses a bridge towards Goethe's garden house and in a wide arc crosses another bridge back home. The excursion lasts an hour Henning's owners think that he only has a small territory but almost every night he runs for kilometers crossing many streets and only then rests in the yard of all the cats in the studio Henning has the largest territory it extends in all directions and often takes him deep into the park Henning's territory is five times larger than that of the other cats in his family He is only two years old He is the youngest in the study The data clearly shows that male cats and Young animals have much larger activity areas than females and older cats presumably also used to have a rudymuch larger territory at the end of the research week some of the cat owners gather in rudy's garden veterinarian alex poycott will present initial results let's see what lottie does all day apparently she has a huge territory that is amazing every day she crosses the gazebo goes to the park crosses the street again here amazing yes of course this is Rudy's territory and this is the park in the middle at the river the paths intersect this must be our house exactly we must be there and Rudy even goes there, but they patrol the territory at different times, alternating and avoiding each other.

Lars follows the exact same route as Emily and wonders what he's been up to. Some of the results really surprise me, firstly that my cats reach further than I thought. I was hoping they wouldn't cross the street in front of our house so often and I also find it interesting that Lars regularly returns to the place where he was born in the old factory building where we found him. I'm amazed, I didn't expect what we just saw. I thought Lottie only had a small radius around the house, maybe including the neighbor's yard, but I thought there was no way she would get that far when I saw my heart started to race and I'm still nervous when I think she's very active and It continually crosses the main road every time we go to town.

Rudy sits on the top of the hill and cries, so we always have a bad conscience. I was surprised that he followed these paths only to the river on the The next main path these results are extremely interesting now that I can show pet owners how big their cats' territory can be. I have roughly analyzed the data with my colleague dunya musa and the results were new to me. There are many studies on this topic. Behavioral scientists and we veterinarians have to be behavioral scientists too. These studies are very interesting and extremely informative. In five days only 10 cats have left an almost indecipherable tangle of footprints.

All the cats of Weimar have probably divided up every square meter of the city between them, but the feline map of Weimar is completely different from the one that the As humans know that we were fascinated by the movements of cats, especially when they differ radically from the expectations and descriptions of their owners, it would now be interesting to collect data on all the cats in Weimar, perhaps over a period of a year or even longer, to that we can establish truly representative patterns. This type of cat research is only in the beginning stages. In the coming decades we will learn much more about these animals.

I believe that animals have a character and a soul. So we are here, just like humans, we vary a lot and we have several. needs and live different lives, then