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The Secret Life of the Cat


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Old 14-06-2013, 20:04
orangebird
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I was really looking forward to this, but hugely disappointed. Their conclusions were nothing more than any cat owner/lover could already tell you. As a statistician I thought they did very little with the data they'd collected.

The one thing that did fascinate me is that cats can run 31 mph. Wow! I was also quite surprised (especially for a village location) that they didn't travel further from home.

One thing that disturbed me about the programme was the size of the cats! The average weight is 4kg ... not one of them was under 5kg.

Something they didn't find is that cats make friends with other cats. One of my boys used to be best friends with the girl cat next door. She used to come round and sit by the back door looking in waiting for him to come out and play! lol It was so cute.
BIB - why does that disturb you? I have two cats, one is 6.02kg and the other is 5.5kg. Neither of them are overweight (as established by our vet).
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Old 14-06-2013, 22:20
MarellaK
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The cats in the documentary did look very overweight which made me feel a lot better about my Bernard. Cats are not meant to be fat, extra weight predisposes to diabetes and heart disease. Some cats have very big builds (yours may be naturally big) but most of these cats were definitely fat - and I speak as the owner of a fat cat.
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Old 14-06-2013, 22:22
orangebird
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There's a bit of Maine coon in mine - definitely bigger cats, but certainly not overweight at all.
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Old 14-06-2013, 22:41
Mitten Kitten
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Tonight's episode was much more interesting, but I wanted to know whether the lady at the end managed to adopt the stray or not.
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Old 15-06-2013, 02:08
Sambda
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Tonight's episode was much more interesting, but I wanted to know whether the lady at the end managed to adopt the stray or not.
Yes, that was odd - the way it ended. The iplayer I was watching it on stopped at that point and I went back again, thinking there was more, but there wasn't.

Strange that they didn't show the stray cat being caught in the cage, as they were going to do. He'd probably be a completely normal pet cat once he's been "done" and de-flead and de-wormed etc.

I don't think the programme got nearly as much good footage from the cat-cams as they thought they were going to - just a load of shots of cats walking along! I thought we were going to see them raiding nests, going down bins, fighting etc.
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Old 15-06-2013, 10:51
Mitten Kitten
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There were other things not explained either. The hermaphrodite cat - In what way was it both sexes? Did that explain why it had such a large patrol area?
The experiment with leaving a cat in a room with a stranger and the owner coming back only to be ignored - would the cat have noticed if the owner, like the stranger, had a toy on a wand? Would it have been the same if they had been in the home environment? If cats don't care about their owners, why do they stay? If it is purely cupboard love, in the village with 50 cats, why aren't they all just finding who has the tastiest food? There was a nugget of a good idea in the programme, but has missed out on so much other more potentially interesting information.
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Old 15-06-2013, 14:07
Roger_Kerr
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Ok programme, but what an opportunity missed. I'm talking about the homing instinct of cats. Where cats are transported to a new location, without time to determine that the new environment is conducive, it will attempt to return to it's last known location of a secure food supply. This is the most likely case in distances of less than 10 miles and has been known to exceed 1,000. Experiments have show that while pigeons may use sun location or magnetic fields a large part of their homing ability is flying around till they recognise landmarks. How do cats do it.
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Old 17-06-2013, 03:02
Ella71110
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BIB - why does that disturb you? I have two cats, one is 6.02kg and the other is 5.5kg. Neither of them are overweight (as established by our vet).

really?? As my male ginger tom is 5.5kg and my female is 5kg and people always comment that they look overweight and it worries me as they do feel heavy compared with my third 4kg cat!
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Old 17-06-2013, 03:07
Ella71110
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There were other things not explained either. The hermaphrodite cat - In what way was it both sexes? Did that explain why it had such a large patrol area?
The experiment with leaving a cat in a room with a stranger and the owner coming back only to be ignored - would the cat have noticed if the owner, like the stranger, had a toy on a wand? Would it have been the same if they had been in the home environment? If cats don't care about their owners, why do they stay? If it is purely cupboard love, in the village with 50 cats, why aren't they all just finding who has the tastiest food? There was a nugget of a good idea in the programme, but has missed out on so much other more potentially interesting information.
i didn't believe that quote at all about cats having no emotional attachment to their owners-the test was different to the dog and baby one and i don't think you can tell with just testing 20cats,

i still enjoyed both programs though-very insightful
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Old 17-06-2013, 17:56
Mitten Kitten
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i didn't believe that quote at all about cats having no emotional attachment to their owners-the test was different to the dog and baby one and i don't think you can tell with just testing 20cats,

i still enjoyed both programs though-very insightful
I would love them to explain why, when I got home from work, I was greeted by a fluffy bum running down the stairs who then preceded to let me cuddle and stroke her (while she purred). I did tell her that she doesn't have to do that as I understand that she doesn't care about me, but she just carried on purring and then licked me.
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Old 17-06-2013, 21:12
Roger_Kerr
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i didn't believe that quote at all about cats having no emotional attachment to their owners-the test was different to the dog and baby one and i don't think you can tell with just testing 20cats,
Agree, all that was proved was that cats are less dependent the a small child is to its mother (try it with a teenager) and showing more independancy than dogs having the instinct of 'pack' animals.
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Old 18-06-2013, 16:49
Roooty
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Wasted opportunity as far as I am concerned. I watched both progs and was left wanting.

As to the emotional attachment thing ... my cat goes crazy when I come home after a few hours. It's purrs and yowls (greeting) a go-go. Now I don't know how he'd behave if someone else was in the house and he wasn't left alone, but my cat is very much "my" cat. He doesn't really socialise with strangers / visitors. He'll sniff them and then come sit on my lap.

Oh and the cameras ... they were massive! You can buy cheap cameras online for around £10 that are far, far smaller (i.e. lightweight).

I do agree that a cat is a cat outside and a kitten inside though.
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