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Little Cat Diaries

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Horizon recently revealed the secret life of cats.

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50 cats in a Surrey village were tracked for a week.

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Have you seen this one? It's quite exciting.

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The experiment cast new light on how they hunt, how they fight,

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and how they live together.

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This film will focus on the surprising stories

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of four of the cats.

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Orlando, the hunter.

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It's bunny season. He will go on a bunny-killing spree.

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Obi, the runaway.

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I think cats do choose their owners, yes.

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Hermes, the top cat.

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Ha! He's everywhere!

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And a fourth cat with no name.

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The cat that no-one seems to know.

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That's not Toby.

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One village, one week, four cats.

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Their diaries help us understand

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the relationship we have with our cats...

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and shed light on what your cat really thinks about you.

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Tobes... He's purring.

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TOBY PURRS

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For one week this spring, Horizon transformed

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the village of Shamley Green into a giant laboratory.

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A unique experiment was carried out with the Royal Veterinary College,

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in which 50 cats were fitted with GPS collars

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to track their every move.

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That's nice. Excellent.

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And some were given cameras that would record

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their cat's-eye view of the world.

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The first of our cats is Orlando.

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He may look like any old pampered pussycat,

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but over the course of the week,

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we discovered where his real talents lie.

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Orlando is a very keen hunter.

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He much prefers wild food to cat food.

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It's bunny season. He will go on a bunny-killing spree.

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Every other day he fills up on bunnies.

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That keeps him going for a while.

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And it isn't just rabbits that Orlando's partial to.

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He'll happily eat almost anything he can catch.

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We actually have trained the cats to keep away from the bird feeder.

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When we first moved to our house three years ago,

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they just literally picked them off the bird feeder

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like sweeties, day after day.

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As cousins of tigers, leopards and other large hunting cats,

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it isn't surprising that some of our pet cats

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barely need us to feed them.

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As part of the experiment, cat owners in the village

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have kept some of the prey that their pets brought home.

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CAT MEWS

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He walked in very nonchalantly, looking very satisfied.

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So I went out and had a look in his feeding place,

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and found... All that was left was one eyeball.

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With four rabbits brought in during the week,

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Orlando seems to be the village's most successful hunter.

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-This is just Orlando.

-His owner, Emily, has come to the village hall.

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It's been temporarily taken over by scientists who are analysing

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the information streaming in from the GPS traces and cat-cams.

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-So, he's been down to your neighbour's.

-Yes.

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And he kind of hangs around here, round the back of her house.

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I don't know what there is there, we haven't looked.

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-That's their house there.

-I think there's a lot of rabbits down there,

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from when I've been to their house.

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It is a bit like having the takeaway two doors down.

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-He certainly brought a lot back.

-Oh, he eats them.

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-He doesn't eat cat food, basically.

-He's a big hunter.

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So he's our champion, as you might have imagined.

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He loves, he just loves rabbits.

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There was one day just before you came, he caught three in one day.

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He ate the first one, the third one, and the second one was a present.

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Orlando's cat-cam footage suggests his favourite meal

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doesn't always agree with him.

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This is our YouTube moment.

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Brace yourselves for this bit.

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SHE LAUGHS

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-Urgh! He's being sick!

-On our neighbours' garden!

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What happens to cats when they eat rabbit guts,

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doesn't always agree with them.

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Cats are the most common carnivores in Britain.

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They bring home tens of millions of prey animals every year.

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Though some cats survive exclusively on pet food,

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many hunt all sorts of mammals, amphibians,

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reptiles, birds and fish.

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As the experiment continues, something unexpected has turned up.

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A friend in Sweetwater Close has seen him.

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I say he, he looks like a boy cat. Looks like a very tough cat.

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About a month ago, I reckon, we had a cat visiting the house.

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You get up every morning, you can smell that a cat had sprayed.

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So we knew we'd had somebody in.

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There's a big fluffy black and white cat

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that I've seen on a few occasions,

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comes in through the cat flap, has a big fight with our cats.

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We started blocking up the cat flap.

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It just pushed everything out of the way and came in.

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We seem to have quite a lot of trouble with spraying

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and other unpleasant things. So our cat's not terribly pleased about it.

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The question is, whose cat is this?

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Or is it a stray?

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If this is one of Britain's 2 million strays,

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it could be bringing all manner of problems to Shamley Green.

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Oh, come on, you're not frightened of me.

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The team are visiting Paulina and her cat Toby

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to try and find out more about the mystery cat.

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-Hi, Paulina.

-Hi, Alex, how are you?

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-I'm all right, how are you?

-Fine.

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-Good. I heard you had an intruder last night?

-I did.

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I'd like to find out what it was.

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Came in...

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scrabble, scrabble, scrabble.

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Cat rushed out of the sitting room, out through the cat door.

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Toby went after him but didn't go through the cat door.

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-It all happened so quickly, I didn't really get a chance...

-No worries.

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We'll rig this up in the living room and see

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if we might be able to see what he was doing.

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Alex is setting up a series of cameras

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to try to get a glimpse of the cat.

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The camera works with a trigger mechanism, so as soon as anything

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passes in front of it, it activates and it records for 60 seconds.

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-So we'll place it down on the floor.

-OK.

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And then see what kind of behaviour we might be able to catch.

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-Yeah, that's fine.

-Brilliant.

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The next day, Paulina has come to meet Dr Sarah Ellis

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to see if there is any news.

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OK, Paulina. So we think we've spotted an intruder in your house.

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-So the footage we've got is inside your house.

-Oh, right. Wow!

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At 3am, the camera is activated.

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-And there's our culprit.

-That's not Toby!

-Nope.

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-When was this, last night?

-Yes.

-God!

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It looks to me, they're a black and white cat, definitely long hair.

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-White paws.

-I don't recognise it.

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-It's got quite distinctive facial markings.

-It has, very.

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Well, that's definitely not Obi next door.

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-And it's definitely not Esme, is it?

-No.

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But the mystery cat is doing more than just turning up unannounced.

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There have been reports of fights with other cats in the village.

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To try to restore peace, the team have called in a pet detective.

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His mission is to find out who the mystery cat belongs to

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or if it's a stray.

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If the intruder cat is definitely a stray,

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there is a possibility

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it might be carrying a disease of some sort, and that concerns us.

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Because if it's fighting with other male cats in the village

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and mating with the female cats,

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those diseases could be passed on relatively quickly.

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So we need to establish a little bit more information about it,

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and the impact it's having on the other cats in the village.

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-Hello! I've come to speak to you about this cat.

-Yeah.

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What I'd like to do now is to get more detail from you.

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You'll be surprised how much you know.

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-Your cat flap, is it open at all times?

-It is.

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-Whereabouts in the house was this cat?

-In my sitting room.

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And do you think it was your return to your house

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-which caused this cat to flee?

-Yes.

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-Have you been putting more food down than normal?

-No.

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-Did you see which direction it went into?

-No.

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Finding out where the cat is coming from and where it's going to

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is essential to finding out whether or not it's a stray.

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Initially, I'd like to put a small field camera into your garden.

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To me, what I want to establish is,

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are you at the end of the route, halfway along its route,

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is it going through a pattern of behaviour every evening?

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Or are you getting a visit simply because

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Toby's out of the way and there's food in the house?

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As with all detective work, the key is information.

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Colin is putting up posters of the intruder cat

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to try and find out if anyone owns it.

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As evening draws in, he sets up some motion-activated cameras

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in and around the Thompsons' house where the cat has also been spotted.

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We're just going to lay these out on the floor overnight,

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with a view to seeing what footage we get of this cat.

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Where the cat comes from is still a mystery.

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The GPS and cat-cams are giving the cat owners of Shamley Green

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a fresh insight into what their pets do

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once they pass through their cat flap and leave their homes behind.

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That's certainly true in the case of Hermes.

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Hermes is a real character.

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He definitely has staff, rather than family.

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He expects us to wait on him hand and foot.

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Alison has been on Hermes' staff for the past four years.

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But until now she's never had a complete picture of her cat's life.

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He keeps the dogs in line, keeps the children in line as well.

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But other than that, we don't know an awful lot.

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It seems he's hardly ever in, and when he's in, he's very cuddly.

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Then he turns around, eats and goes back out again.

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Hermes is very protective of his garden in terms of territory.

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I've seen him getting quite angry with cats

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at the bottom of our garden, trying to keep them at bay.

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I don't know how far beyond that it goes.

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I'd be fascinated to see what he gets up to,

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whether he just pops three doors up and sits on somebody's lap

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and gets pampered, or whether he goes out and about and roams around.

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Predicting Hermes' behaviour is particularly difficult

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because he is not actually a HE at all.

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Hermes is quite an interesting cat

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because Hermes is actually a hermaphrodite.

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Neither male nor female, has organs of both.

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We can't make any predictions based on gender

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what that ranging behaviour would be.

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But what we seem to see is Hermes doing laps.

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These routine patrols. A big patrol loop.

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GPS data and Hermes' cat-cam show that his protective instincts

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extend way beyond his back garden.

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Hermie ranged further than any other cat this week.

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And I can see he's going to a lot of back gardens,

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he's crossing different roads. Generally getting around.

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About six hectares, or 15 acres, what he's ranging over.

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And he's really going a long way every night,

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covering a great deal of distance.

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When he's roaming in around these streets and in and out

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of the gardens and so on, he's presumably looking for other cats.

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Checking out the neighbourhood in general.

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CAT MEOWS

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Some areas he seems to go to, like here, he's going to quite regularly.

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Almost on a daily basis.

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But other areas, perhaps he only checks out once every few days,

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just to see whether the local cat activity has changed or not.

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It's time for Hermes' owners to find out what he's really been up to.

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-That's definitely active.

-Crikey!

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He's everywhere! Oh, my word.

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-So as you can see, he's covering quite a lot of ground.

-He is, yeah.

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In fact if you're adding all that together,

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-he is our roamer of the week.

-Wow!

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He's gone further than any other cat,

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and that includes the cats that we've been following

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right out in the outlying areas, which you would think have

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-plenty of space to roam around in, they'd be all over the place.

-Yeah.

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In fact, most of those have stuck close to home

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and Hermes has taken the prize.

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It surprises me. There's a lot of cats in our street,

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you'd have thought there'd be a reasonable amount

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of territory battle.

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Yeah, he doesn't seem to be restricted at all

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by that kind of thing.

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There are other cats moving around in these areas,

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pretty much at the same time he is. He just doesn't seem to be bothered.

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So he's a very confident cat.

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As roamer of the week,

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the result suggests it's Hermes who's in charge.

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He doesn't seem to be affected by anybody else's territory,

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so yeah, he's...pretty cool, really, apparently! Which is always nice.

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This is like going to parents' evening for your children.

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But for your cat.

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He's obviously a little dude enjoying himself,

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-which is nice.

-Hermes, top cat!

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The team have found the village's top hunter and top roamer.

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But there's still one cat that's proving elusive.

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A few days ago, motion-sensitive cameras were placed in and around

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the Thompsons' house to look for signs of the intruder cat.

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They've got some results.

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They've had an intruder.

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And we're really interested to see if that intruder is the same intruder

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that's been in Paulina and Toby's house.

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So he's definitely long-haired, as was the intruder to Paulina's house.

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And it's definitely the same cat. Without a doubt.

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He's got quite a distinct marking on his back inside leg,

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he's got a white flash, you can just see it there.

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Oh, and he's going to spray.

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He's just urine sprayed at the exit to the house.

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This is suggestive that he may be trying to claim this area as his own.

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Cats tend to mark at the entry/exit points,

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at the boundary of what they consider their own territory.

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That's really interesting,

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this could be a bit of a territorial dispute.

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Most cats that spray are un-neutered tomcats.

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As over 80% of pet cats are neutered,

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the intruder here is very likely to be a stray.

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Not something that the Thompsons would welcome.

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The Thompsons have two cats, Harry and Midge. So this is Midge.

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She's definitely smelling some of that area.

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And she's off out.

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But it may be related to the fact that she's had

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an intruder in her home who's scent-marking her home,

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and that can cause tension for cats within their own home.

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A visit to the Thompson family uncovers some worrying news.

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Midge hasn't returned.

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How long has Midgy been missing?

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So, last seen Saturday evening. So it's now Monday evening.

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So 48 hours.

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Tell me about this visitor that you've been having, this other cat?

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-When do you think he first turned up?

-Five, six weeks ago.

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-OK. And what does it look like?

-Big, fluffy, black and white.

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Mum says that it really smells.

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Where we start now is by putting in field cameras,

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so we can literally map its route into the garden, where it goes.

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And then the final stage is, we'll introduce a cat trap,

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which is a humane cage. We put food into the cage,

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and we encourage the cat to go into the cage.

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We have a facility within our office to watch that video footage.

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We will know when the cat's gone in.

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-And we might give you a quick call and, say, just check.

-Fantastic.

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Midge appears to have been rattled by the intruder.

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The question is whether or not his family will be enough

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to lure him home.

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Obi? Obi?

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From the look of Obi's relationship with Nina, you might think

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they've been together ever since he was a newborn kitten,

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over 10 years ago.

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Actually, he's a runaway.

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I first noticed Obi eating bird food in our garden.

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This was about three years ago.

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And I started feeding him, I probably shouldn't have.

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But I felt quite sorry for him, because he appeared to be hungry.

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And then he just kept coming back.

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And I thought he was a stray, but then I realised he had a collar on.

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I then discovered that he came from across the road.

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After 10 years of living across the road,

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Obi had started to become less comfortable.

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As he got older, he wasn't a big fan of the children.

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And there were four kids running around.

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And then obviously we got Amber,

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and that was the last straw, I think, for him.

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He came in the gate one day, saw the dog and the dog saw him,

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and they sort of looked at each other

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and the dog went to go for him and he just legged it,

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and that was about it. There was nothing I could really do about it.

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I had to just let him go.

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Some days, he literally is here on that bed all day long.

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Life of Riley, isn't it?

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I think cats do choose their owners, yes, I do.

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We have a very quiet household.

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Just my partner and myself, whereas Laura's was very noisy.

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So, on reflection, maybe that's why he came and stayed.

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Obi's GPS data from the previous night suggest that

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since he moved, he's never looked back.

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So, this is Obi, who has moved to this house quite recently

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from another house of his own accord.

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I think it was around this area here,

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-so he is almost avoiding that area completely.

-Yeah.

0:20:190:20:22

It's interesting that he's not going back to where

0:20:220:20:24

he lived at all, there's no attempts to go back in that area,

0:20:240:20:27

because he's not moved far, has he?

0:20:270:20:29

It is rather unusual, but if cats find themselves in a household where

0:20:290:20:33

there is stuff that they can't deal with, they do move spontaneously.

0:20:330:20:38

It's quite common.

0:20:380:20:39

I was really upset. Really, really upset.

0:20:420:20:44

I was also angry at him for a little bit as well,

0:20:440:20:47

because I thought, that's ten years and he was a part of the family,

0:20:470:20:51

he was like one of my children.

0:20:510:20:54

And seeing him now, I look out the kitchen window and I see him

0:20:540:20:57

over the road, following her around, it is a bit upsetting.

0:20:570:21:01

But, you know, they're happy together, so I'm glad he's happy.

0:21:010:21:05

Now, Obi has a new home and a new owner...

0:21:090:21:13

...but is it for life?

0:21:140:21:15

I think he's attached to me and to my partner as well.

0:21:180:21:22

It all may be cupboard love. I don't know!

0:21:220:21:25

But, yes, we do love him.

0:21:260:21:29

There's no doubt how we feel about our cats,

0:21:360:21:39

but how attached are our cats to us?

0:21:390:21:43

Erm...

0:21:430:21:45

..probably quite attached as long as I feed him.

0:21:470:21:50

It's more than that. They come because they want company,

0:21:500:21:53

they want to have that interaction, they want to be stroked,

0:21:530:21:56

they want to be spoken to.

0:21:560:21:58

He'll come up to me and like, nuzzle against me

0:21:580:22:00

like he wants to be stroked.

0:22:000:22:02

-He doesn't really do that with Joel.

-No, or Dad.

-Or Dad.

0:22:020:22:06

Every cat owner wonders just how much their cat loves them back.

0:22:100:22:14

Professor Daniel Mills of the University of Lincoln

0:22:150:22:19

is studying how attached cats are to their owners.

0:22:190:22:22

We were interested in how do you actually characterise

0:22:220:22:25

the relationship between a cat and the owner?

0:22:250:22:28

Owners invest a lot emotionally in the cat relationship.

0:22:280:22:32

It doesn't mean the cat's investing

0:22:320:22:34

in the same sort of emotional relationship.

0:22:340:22:36

So our research was really aimed at trying to look to see

0:22:360:22:38

whether or not cats are making that emotional commitment.

0:22:380:22:41

This is the strange situation room. There's your chair.

0:22:450:22:48

Here are the toys. You can set the baby...

0:22:480:22:50

Daniel's team adapted a famous psychology experiment

0:22:500:22:53

from the 1970s

0:22:530:22:55

that was originally devised to study the attachment

0:22:550:22:58

between parent and child.

0:22:580:23:02

'With mother as a secure base, a child has confidence to go

0:23:020:23:06

'exploring into the furthest corner of the room.'

0:23:060:23:08

-SCIENTIST:

-Time for stranger.

0:23:110:23:13

A stranger is introduced into the room.

0:23:170:23:19

'The child doesn't know how to take the stranger.

0:23:190:23:23

'He's going to mother.'

0:23:230:23:25

In the next part of the experiment, the mother leaves

0:23:260:23:29

when the child is not looking.

0:23:290:23:31

The revelation of the experiment was the reunion.

0:23:360:23:40

'The child shows nothing but a dramatic desire to get

0:23:400:23:43

'to mother as quickly as possible and cling.'

0:23:430:23:45

Psychologists concluded that this pattern of behaviour meant

0:23:470:23:50

the child has a strong attachment to its parent.

0:23:500:23:53

Daniel's team have reproduced the experiment with dogs.

0:23:550:24:00

While the dog is distracted, the owner leaves.

0:24:000:24:04

This labrador cannot bear to part from his owner.

0:24:090:24:13

Now comes the reunion.

0:24:180:24:19

It's just as enthusiastic as the one between the child and his mother.

0:24:250:24:29

In the case of dogs and in the case of children,

0:24:310:24:33

the attachment actually means they see the individual as a source

0:24:330:24:37

of comfort, something that provides joy and also a source of safety.

0:24:370:24:42

Daniel and his team then tried out the experiment with cats.

0:24:460:24:50

They're about to find out how attached this cat is to her owner.

0:24:500:24:56

So, the cat's been let out of the basket and the owner

0:24:560:25:00

and the stranger are being asked just to ignore the cat.

0:25:000:25:03

If the cat has this secure attachment in the same way as children

0:25:030:25:07

and dogs do, then actually the cat would tend to use

0:25:070:25:10

the owner as a point of reference to explore the environment,

0:25:100:25:13

so they might go out and away from them, but keep coming back.

0:25:130:25:16

In this case, the cat is interacting a lot with the stranger.

0:25:160:25:21

It suggests the cat is not actually using the owner

0:25:210:25:24

as the point of reference. It's making its own decisions.

0:25:240:25:28

The owner leaves when the cat is distracted.

0:25:340:25:36

But what will happen when the owner returns?

0:25:450:25:48

The cat is unmoved.

0:25:540:25:56

What our research shows

0:25:580:25:59

so far is that the relationship between a cat and an owner is not

0:25:590:26:04

what would be described

0:26:040:26:05

as a secure attachment-style relationship.

0:26:050:26:08

Certainly owners believe that their cats are very affectionate

0:26:080:26:12

towards them, but we are starting to think the cat views the owner

0:26:120:26:16

more as the provider of resources than of safety,

0:26:160:26:19

which is the key feature of a secure attachment.

0:26:190:26:23

Daniel and his team have studied 20 cats.

0:26:240:26:27

Though they haven't yet completed their analysis, the evidence

0:26:270:26:31

suggests that cats may not need us as much as we'd like to believe.

0:26:310:26:36

Clearly, cat owners love cats.

0:26:360:26:38

It's difficult to say whether or not cats love back!

0:26:380:26:41

Back in Shamley Green, Colin has concluded his investigation

0:26:450:26:49

-into the intruder cat.

-We're done here.

0:26:490:26:51

He's visiting Paulina to share his results.

0:26:510:26:54

We've got lots of information

0:26:540:26:57

and we are certain that he doesn't have an owner.

0:26:570:27:00

And what we believe is, he is coming in here three or four times

0:27:020:27:06

a day and sometimes he stays here, maybe three or four hours at a time.

0:27:060:27:10

Good God! Have you seen any interaction with him and Toby,

0:27:100:27:14

-my cat?

-We've got footage of the two cats together

0:27:140:27:18

and they seem to be acknowledging each other, so it's almost as if

0:27:180:27:21

he's going off looking for trouble elsewhere and then he comes back.

0:27:210:27:24

-Gosh!

-What we would normally do now is trap him,

0:27:240:27:28

get him to a vet's and get him checked over.

0:27:280:27:31

He will be neutered, so the best thing for him would be

0:27:310:27:34

to be re-released, little bit less aggressive,

0:27:340:27:37

healthy and leading a normal life, but obviously nobody would own him.

0:27:370:27:41

Just supposing I said that I might try to adopt him,

0:27:420:27:47

how would we do that?

0:27:470:27:49

Erm, really all that would happen there is,

0:27:490:27:52

instead of releasing him outside,

0:27:520:27:54

I would recommend that you keep him indoors for a couple of weeks, so he

0:27:540:27:58

gets used to this as his home and then give him a run of the garden.

0:27:580:28:01

I think you'll find that you will have...

0:28:010:28:03

Suddenly, he'll be here all the time.

0:28:030:28:05

Yes, I should think he is anyway, but you don't know about it!

0:28:050:28:08

-Oh, gosh!

-He's already adopted you.

0:28:080:28:10

You're just making the decision after him!

0:28:100:28:12

It isn't only Toby and Paulina

0:28:140:28:16

that have made their peace with the newcomer.

0:28:160:28:19

Midge has also returned.

0:28:190:28:21

It's clear that people love cats.

0:28:240:28:27

But what the diaries of our four cats in Shamley Green suggest

0:28:270:28:31

is that though we may think they need us,

0:28:310:28:34

it's the cats who are really in charge!

0:28:340:28:38

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