Original subtitles

It's hard to know what's going on inside the mind of a cat.

But new discoveries may finally open the door to our most puzzling companions.

Some people don't think cats have much to offer.

We're here to prove them wrong.

Forget everything you think you know about cats. Cat

research is definitely lagging behind the dog, but now we're

seeing an explosion of cat science. A new generation of

scientists is challenging preconceptions. We're uncovering

different aspects of our behavior, personality, physiology,

all those things that make a cat unique. They are

intelligent, they're curious, and they interact socially

quite well with people. And there is evidence to suggest

that they've evolved to do that. Join us as we solve

the mysteries of the cat, decode their crazy antics, and

decipher their hidden language.

It's not going to be easy. Cats are complicated. Dasha, come

here. Yes, they have their attitude. But if you want, you

can teach a cat to do anything.

Anyone can unlock a cat's true potential, if you learn their secrets.

Cats are everywhere. And yet we know so little about them.

To understand what makes a cat a cat and how they've learned

to live with humans, we turn to the experts.

I think people underestimate how social cats are. Let's face

it, they're just entertaining and sometimes just very funny.

Oddly, some of the traits that make them so charming evolved

from their killer ancestors. If one were asked to engineer

the perfect land predator in terms of physical traits, in

terms of behavior, perception, it's hard to imagine a better

one than a cat. The scientific name of the domestic cat is

Felis catus. Felis catus is a unique domesticated species

that was derived from the African wildcat.

All cats, big and small, belong to the Felidae family.

Around three and a half million years ago, the genus Felis

made up of smaller cats split from panthera, big cats like

lions and tigers. Today, there are 400 million Felis catus

worldwide, numbers that make them one of the 10 most

successful mammals to ever walk the Earth. In 10,000 years,

their DNA has changed relatively little. Genetics-wise, you

basically have a wild animal living in your house. A wild

animal with some amazing physical hardware. And at the

center of it all, the cat's remarkable spine. They actually

have more vertebrae in them than most mammals. Their

vertebrae also have especially elastic cushioning discs

between them, so their spines are incredibly flexible. This

flexible design helps make the cat the fastest animal on

land. If you look at a cheetah running, the flexing and

contracting of that spine stores potential energy and

releases it as kinetic energy as the cat is bounding forward.

Your cat is basically a tiny, flexible cheetah with the

potential to run over 30 miles per hour and twist into some

pretty crazy yoga poses.

Cats also have an efficient muscular system. They're one of

the few mammals that can activate 100% of their muscles when

they jump.

They can jump between five and six times their length

in height. That's like a human jumping over a giraffe.

And they use their tails to counterbalance

themselves during quick changes in direction.

As any gymnast will tell you, what goes up must come down.

Which brings up an age-old question. The saying is that cats

always land on their feet. They do have an amazing ability

to orient themselves quickly. In order to do this, they

first have to recognize where their body is in space

using a phenomenon known as the writing reflex.

This reflex is a function of the vestibular system.

Hypersensitive hair cells in the inner ear sense body

position, movement, and acceleration in space and transmit

this information straight into the brain. So a cat always knows which way is up.

All mammals have this writing reflex, including humans. But

sometimes we get disoriented. And we call that the twisties.

You heard this thing about Simone Biles. She felt like she

had lost the ability to sense where her body was in space.

And she felt that to continue would have been dangerous,

which makes sense. But, you know, it's a difficult thing to

control. A cat's reflexes are more than twice as fast as

ours. And faster than any other pets. You know, if you drop

a dog from the same position, and many times they won't land on their feet.

Pound for pound, felines could be the fastest,

strongest, and most flexible mammal on the planet.

But those wild talents can also make them mysterious.

To find out why they do what they do. Perhaps a cat

psychologist can help. Sit back. There you go, sweetie.

Over evolution, cats have not changed all that much. And now

they're kind of this mix between, you know, being those wild

cats, but also being the house cats that we want them to

be. Kristin studies the mysteries of the feline mind. She's

trying to decode what cats are thinking. I think that the

social capacity of cats has really been underestimated.

Especially, you know, a lot of time cats are being compared to dogs.

People say dogs are superior on a lot of these socio

-cognitive traits. Canines are often thought of as the more

intuitive pet. They know their name and as many as 160 or

so words. They can understand human facial expressions and

maybe even problem solve. But Kristin believes cats just

haven't had the chance to prove themselves. Be nice. What

we're seeing more and more is that the research just hadn't

been done in cats. So she set out to determine once and for

all just how cats stack up against their canine rivals. So

we're just going to place him up here. First things first,

do cats know their own name? For this test, we're

trying to figure out if Carl recognizes his name.

So we've got this Bluetooth speaker and we're going to play my voice through it.

Kristin starts with four one-syllable words. Boo! Carl

reacts to the first word, a new sound in his environment.

Suck! But he soon loses interest in the audio. Day!

Kristin then adds a word very close to his name. Girl!

Still nothing.

But then, the moment of truth. Carl! Good! This test has

been run hundreds of times with many different cats. And

it's clear, most cats do know their own name. Whether they

choose to respond is a different story. But we'll talk about

that later.

Kristin's research led her to the epicenter of a modern-day cat revolution.

In 2017, cats overtook canines as the most popular pet in Japan.

Today, it's home to nine million pet cats. And one of the world's top cat scientists.

In my research, cats are the most popular pet in

Japan. I've been doing cat research for about 15 years.

Kristin and Saho have published 37 studies combined. They've

helped prove that cats recognize both the face and the voice

of their people, not to mention other cats. They prove that

cats do know what a point means. They understand object

permanence. They are able to understand that when an object

disappears from sight, it doesn't mean it's gone from

existence. Bottom line, they understand way more than we

thought they did. Now that the research is being conducted,

we're seeing cats are behaving and performing roughly the

same as dogs. The trick is knowing how to tap into that

potential. Marina and Svetlana, interview, ABC Mark.

My name is Marina. My name is Svetlana. And we are the

Savitsky Cats. We are a family of super trained cats and

humans.

Training the cats, it's kind of a magic of some sort.

And it's not an easy one. The amazing Savitsky Cats are

Ukrainian celebrities. They tour the world, entertaining

millions. They made it to the quarterfinals of America's Got

Talent, by the way. Not bad for an animal often considered

untrainable. The difference between training a cat and

training a dog is the dogs want to please you. I will do

anything for you. I will do just, just, just say me. And the

cats just kind of make me. The Savitsky's know the

key to getting the most out of their performers.

For the past four years, Dasha has been their breakout star.

Dasha is an actress.

Whenever she sees a camera, it's kind of like the whole

world stops. And like the camera is the only thing I need.

Dasha performs many of the team's hardest tricks.

Including the mission impossible.

And the high jump.

Dasha is the undisputed captain of the Savitsky Cats. But

there are three other candidates vying to take her spot. And

any one of them could be the next big star. Each cat is kind

of our own child. And we cannot imagine our life without

them. The only way to bring out the best in a feline is to

establish a bond. Some doctors dedicate their lives to this

art form.

Before a person adopts a cat or purchases a cat, you want

them to do some homework, right? You want them to kind of

look at what to expect when you bring home a cat. It's a

big decision because you're adding a valuable family member.

Adding a cat is a huge deal. The learning curve can be steep

for beginners. If you want your cat to like you, one of the

very first things you can do is the slow blink. Eye contact

in the animal world is very important. Direct eye contact, a

hard stare, non-blinking is scary. If you want to interact

with a cat, make yourself look small, kind of move sideways,

stand sideways. And, you know, you can look over and do

a blink. To cats, this is like smiling, spreading happy,

positive emotions. And they will often respond. So they do

the slow blink to tell you, hey, it's okay, I'm friendly.

You know, I like you. I'm not, I'm not being threatening.

And when cats do that, like, I think of it as a compliment.

Oh, that cat likes me. Yeah. If the slow blink works, you

can try to get a little closer. Cats, when they greet each

other, cats that are friendly to each other will do nose

touches. They will literally come up and touch noses. If you

want to get to know your cat, you can offer your finger

to them and let them kind of do like a nose boop. They're

sniffing your finger, getting your scent, getting to know

you. And that's kind of like for me, like a handshake. But

if they like you, what frequently happens is they'll rub

along your finger. Just don't come in hot from above. Going

back to, you know, their wild ancestors, they are part prey.

So what attacks them from above? Things that come out with

claws, you know, large raptors, owls, eagles, things like

that. So when you come over with your hand like this, it's

kind of scary, very intimidating. Low and slow is the way to

go. I usually put the finger out and let them sniff. And if

they start rubbing, then I go and pet along the side of

their face, underneath their chin, neutral territory. And if

they like chin rubs or neck rubs, then you got the cat

eating out of the palm of your hand. Some cats, wary of

contact, need a little extra convincing. A lot of cats are

very fearful. So what we do is we have a pom-pom. It's a

little ball of yarn stuck to a long dowel. We use that to

initiate interactions with the cat and let them interact

with that first to see how the cat feels. When a cat is

comfortable, they let you know. Owl rubbing is an important

bond building social behavior. We saw that 83% of cats rub

down their owner when they return to the room. We are seeing

that owl rubbing seems to serve an important stress

relieving purpose for cats as well. This friendly gesture

might just mean you've been accepted. But do cats like

all humans? Or do they play favorites? This test is called

paired attachment, and in it what we do is look at how

much time the cat spends with their owner and a stranger.

If Carl chooses Kristin, his owner, over the stranger

more than half the time, it'll show there's a preference.

Carl basically chose me every time, and so he seems to have

a preference for me, his owner, over a stranger. They've run

this experiment, and others like it, thousands of times. And

there's no doubt cats form strong attachment bonds to their

owners. The human-cat attachment bond may be an extension

of that attachment bond that they have with their mother as

kittens. Yes, we have a connection, and we certainly love

them. But do cats actually love us? We'll explore that more

in a bit. First, another key to unlocking the feline mind

is to make them feel at home. And just like their ancestors,

cats like to get high. Cats like high places because they

want to know what's going on, and if they're uncomfortable,

they can go to high places to hide out. It's definitely a

leftover trait from when they're wild cats, right? Those are

all instinctive behavior. You don't need to teach a cat to

climb. He's going to tell you, I'm going to climb, and if

you don't provide him with cat furniture that's appropriate

for him to use, he's going to make his own little perch.

Cats also like tight spaces, which helps explain their

obsession with boxes. Those enclosed sides makes us feel

safe. I think that's why cats really like boxes, and it's

kind of cool to hide and jump out and attack your owners.

Cats are ambush predators, which means that they typically

hide in order to get their prey. So having a box is

something that's going to kind of help the cat complete

their predatory motor pattern. Cardboard boxes actually have

a stress-relieving effect for them.

Cats occupy kind of an interesting niche in ecology because

when they're hunting, they may be going into holes in trees.

They're navigating obstacles. A predator that is able to

navigate obstacles is probably going to do better. Clearly

that's going to be a survival benefit. Cats have specialized

assets that help them squeeze where few animals can. One way

we can demonstrate this ability is to see how small a hole

a cat can get through, and we can entice them to go through

holes with things like food and toys and treats like that.

Large holes are no problem.

But as Bruce shrinks the size of the hole, they begin

to show their true mastery of their environment.

And it all starts with the whiskers. Now, whiskers are a

very interesting adaptation of cats. They're, as most people

know them, they look like hairs. They're long hair-like

structures, each of which is connected to a bundle of nerves

that then sends information regarding what that whisker

touches to the brain. Most people are aware of whiskers on

the chin, but there are also whiskers on the eyebrows. And

people aren't aware, for example, that there are whiskers

behind the backs of the front paws. So these have evolved

to provide tactile or touching information regarding the

environment. One benefit of whiskers? They tell

a cat how small a hole she can fit through.

Their flexible skeleton does the rest. Their clavicles

or their collarbones are not anchored in bone, they're in

muscles. It's like being double-jointed everywhere. As you

can see in this experiment, as we gradually make the hole

smaller and smaller, it's really pretty surprising that

these cats, which are pretty large, can make it through.

But whiskers don't grow if a cat puts on a few extra pounds.

The whiskers have evolved to be about the width of a cat

that is a normal, healthy body condition. And this gets to

another issue of being overweight and obesity in cats. Many

cats are obese, and it's a big problem. The whiskers will

not grow to accommodate the increased girth of a cat that is

overweight. Fifty-nine percent of cats in the U.S.

are overweight. So finding the right diet is crucial.

Our cat's wild relatives have to work for their food. They

have no trouble staying slim. Our cats? Not so much. Do you

want to say them on the scale real quick? No cheating. If

you're eating and eating and eating and you eat quickly, you

know, you can get a lot of food down your throat before your

stomach goes, oh wait, it's too much. So we want to do the

same thing for cats. We want to give them something to do.

So either a cat toy, a feeding, interactive feeder, but

something they can work on so they know there's food in

there. Dude, you gotta work for it. Also, regardless of what

their owners eat, cats need to eat meat. Cats are obligate

carnivores. They must eat meat because they are unable to

synthesize certain amino acids that are found only in meat.

So please, make sure that you feed your cat a meat-based

diet. It has to be nutritionally complete and

balanced, but please don't make it vegetarian.

Keeping your cat healthy and happy can quickly become a way of life.

One doctor in Japan spends so much time around felines. They call him the cat guru.

Cats are very emotional animals. People who don't like cats

are often told that they don't know what a cat is thinking.

Dr. Yuki has spent tens of thousands of hours studying cats.

He's working to decode the subtle nuance of their language.

When a cat's eyes are open and their ears are up, they're

relaxed. If they narrow their eyes and lower their ears,

they're becoming aggressive. Eyes open, but ears back means

they're preparing to defend themselves. And, if they bare

their teeth, they become aggressive. It means they're ready

for an attack. Reading a cat's face can be intuitive. The

tail is more of a mystery.

When a cat thrashes its tail, it's annoyed. But

when they hold it straight up, they're pretty happy.

When the tail is twitching, it means they're intrigued.

When a cat tucks its tail between its legs, it's afraid and

trying to look submissive. When all their hair stands on

end, it means they're downright terrified. But when a cat's

eyes are open and their ears are up, they become aggressive.

If you understand these coded messages, anyone can

read a cat. And sometimes, it helps just to listen.

There are sounds a cat makes when it wants something. And sounds when a cat is happy.

These are warning sounds. Don't get too close. And this is

the sound of an attack. But cats talk to humans far more

than they do other cats.

The most mysterious coded messages are found in the purr.

A surprising new study has found that when a cat purrs,

they use their purr to tap into our subconscious.

They seem to be able to insert frequencies that overlap

with the frequencies that a human baby makes when it cries.

When a human baby cries, the frequency, or the length of the

sound waves, is between 400 and 600 Hz. A sound designed to

get our attention. Modern cats have developed a special high

-pitched meow embedded within their purr that mimics this

frequency.

Cats have evolved a way to make a sound that

humans have a lot of difficulty ignoring.

And so it seems that that's really tapping into either the

maternal or paternal instinct of the owner to care for the

cat. They've evolved to make us care for them. But there

are still things we can do to get them to listen to us. The

first and the basic command that we teach cats to do is

following us. So we can run off from them and say, come to

me, and they will come. Teaching simple commands through

repetition is known as classical conditioning. So the

classical example of classical conditioning is from Pavlov.

Dr. Ivan Pavlov won the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1904

for his discovery. What he learned was that if you ring a

bell and you offer the dog food, after repeated pairings,

the sound of the bell will start causing the dog to

salivate. So the dog got conditioned that hearing the bell

means food's going to come, so that's classical

conditioning. For cats, clicker training is a good place to

start. You want to offer the click sound, and within a

second or two offer the cat the treat, so the cat goes, oh,

hey, every time I hear the click, I get to eat my special

treat. So then that click becomes meaningful. Cats get bored

easily, so keep training sessions short. I would aim

anywhere between one to five minutes. I would be, it would

be like exceedingly awesome if we get five minutes.

Quite honestly, I tell my owners like 30 to 60 seconds,

hallelujah, we got it. If your cat can do more than that,

that's great. It's important to be patient. Not all cats

respond the same way. Because all cats are different. In

our research, one thing that we're seeing in a lot of cat

behavior is that there's a lot of individual variability.

So cats really differ on their response to people and their

sociability. Not all cats are superstars.

Dasha got to where she is through years of training.

The other Savitsky cats are still a work in progress.

When animals are born, they're born with a temperament.

That temperament is the initial building blocks for that

personality that's going to develop over their lifetime. All

of our cats have different personalities and you need to

adjust to them. So you cannot make them adjust to you. It's

kind of not their job, it's yours. So you need to pick

what works for them better. We see actually in kittens that

already by the age of three days old, they're

showing differences within their litter.

The Savitsky's don't force their performers to do these

amazing stunts. Like a sculptor who finds the sculpture

within the rock, they let each cat's potential reveal itself.

This is Isam. She is a diva. You never know will she perform

or not. Yeah, you never know. She's kind of like really,

really difficult. But the tricks she's doing, they are

really amazing. So it's worth the risk. At 13, the senior

member of the team is a fan favorite. This is Chupa. She was

very hard to train in the beginning, like very challenging.

She didn't get it, like at all. But a few months passed and

like just it clicked. And now she's a great student. You

definitely can teach old cats to do tricks. Their newest

recruit, Eddie, had a slightly different upbringing. Eddie,

it's a girl name. And she grew up with the dog, so most of

her life she has the dog-like habits and behavior. We do

know that life experience really does impact the cat's

behavior. And that also impacts how social the cat is.

Because of her background, the Savitskis train Eddie a bit differently.

She's doing everything backwards. She's doing like really

crazy stuff that other cats can't do just because their

brain is not wired to do that. Eddie also loves to jump.

So they're teaching her one of their hardest tricks. She's

currently working on a jump through the paper hoop.

I would say like it's the next more challenging trick

that you can do after like socializing them. Because you

basically teach a cat how to jump into a wall. It takes

time, time, time and a lot of practice, a lot of like wasted

paper. It's still kind of still in process.

It's gonna take some practice.

But the Savitskis are learning how to motivate Eddie.

Different cats are motivated by different rewards. This

might seem simple enough, but many new cat owners get it

wrong. I think part of it is that they're using the wrong

items to motivate the cats. Cats are more discerning than

many other pets. Food is not always the great motivator.

We found that the majority of cats actually prefer social

rewards. Kristen has done extensive research on what cats

want. She gives cats a choice between their favorite toy,

their favorite smell, their favorite food or their owner.

And more than half the time, they choose their people. I

think he loves you. It seems the heart trumps the stomach.

So is this proof that cats love us? I get asked a lot

whether cats love us or not. Love is a really complex

emotion. And even in humans, you know, someone might tell

you that they love you, but they behave very differently.

To answer that question and understand the true nature of

the human-cat relationship, we need to go all the way back

to the beginning.

For years, historians believed our friendship began in Egypt

around 4,000 years ago. But a recent breakthrough changed

everything.

10,000 years ago, so before the Neolithic, there were

no cats in Cyprus. Cyprus is a small island in the

Mediterranean near the cradle of civilization, where

archaeologists recently unearthed a huge discovery. They

found a Neolithic burial of a child. And in this burial,

there was also a cat skeleton. Dr. Eva Maria used DNA to

date this find. And it would become the earliest

known evidence of the human-cat relationship.

Proving we've been together for at least 10,000 years. This

cat did not swim over the sea. It means that the people took

this cat on their ships to Cyprus. So something happened

around this time in this area. What happened was the farm.

Humans began to grow crops and store grains, and wild cats

saw an opportunity. These granaries must have attracted

rodents, which was a disaster for the early farmers. And so

the cats jumped on these rodents and thrived on the rodents.

And this was probably the beginning of this relationship

between the wild cats and humans. And from here, the

relationship grew. Egyptian worship cats. You had millions

of cats mummified. And from the Egyptian iconography,

statues, all kinds of depictions of cats. And there you see

chairs of noble people, very often women, and a little cat

under the chair. So this shows us that the cat had entered

the house. It was on the way to become a house cat. Wherever

we went, cats followed. Often by boat. Ships are probably

the predominant means of spreading of the cat. The rodents

went on the ships and the cats followed. And so there was

not a single ship probably that went out of the port without

cats. So this is how Felis Catus made its way to every continent on Earth.

It was so important on ships that until 1975 in the British

Navy, it was still compulsory to have a cat on the ship. It

wasn't just the British.

Attention Mr. Coast Guardsman, Herman the cat is on the

prowl. In Baltimore, Herman is fingerprinted, or is it paw

-printed, so he can get an official Coast Guard pass. This

is real. Herman the cat was actually in the US Coast Guard.

But history hasn't always been this kind of felines.

Stories of black cats and dark magic, witches and cauldrons

did not begin in Salem or even Transylvania. But with a

rogue pup named Gregory the Ninth. Cats in the Middle

Ages were associated to witches. Witches were actually

intelligent women, wise women who knew a lot about nature.

These wise women knew that keeping the house clean would

keep you healthy. So they cleaned the house with a broom and

they had cats to get rid of rodents. There came a time when

the church, dominated by males, considered them to be a

danger. So the church tried to get rid of them. Demonized

during this papal inquisition, Europe's cat population was

decimated. Which some believe may have contributed to the

Black Plague.

Black Death, the plague, was transmitted by rodents,

by fleas actually. And the fleas were in the fur of the

rodents. With fewer cats, the plague was out of control.

Thankfully, even during these dark times, some

people continued to nurture a bond with cats.

A relationship that's still evolving to this day.

There's a history of cats in distilleries. It's quite a

traditional thing in Scotland. There was a very famous cat

over at a distillery in Perthshire called Tauza. And he's

probably the most famous distillery cat ever. He or she is

led by a cat. The legendary, I think, is the most famous distillery cat.

Five years ago, Helen and Drew McKenzie adopted

two working cats to carry on an age-old tradition.

The Abbey was founded in 1191.

We have William Wallace coming here after his victory

of the English at the Battle of Black Ironside.

So it's got a huge history. I suppose we're continuing the

tradition. All the cats that have been here over the years.

They named the black male Friar John Claw. And the calico

female Vespers. A nod to the medieval monks that lived here.

And just like those monks, these cats begin their services at night.

The eyes of cats are very large compared to the size of the

skull. They also have something called a tapetum lucidum,

which is a layer of cells at the back of the eye that

reflects light back to the retina. So it allows it to see

very well in low-light conditions. What they're looking for

poses a very real danger to the health of the cats. Mice are

always present in a distillery because of the huge amounts

of barley. And grain obviously attracts mice. Unfortunately,

without giving too technical, mice kind of weep all the

time. So for want of a better expression. And that's not a

good thing. To find these vermin, the cats need to get

ultrasonic. The ears of cats can rotate about 180 degrees.

They can hear very high frequencies. This is because the

prey that they seek vocalizes in this auditory range. So

this allows them to kind of localize and kind of triangulate on prey.

The cats do their job well.

But Helen and Drew were curious what exactly they were

up to. So Helen put on GPS trackers to find out. The GPS

collars reveal that each night Vesper's travels more than a

mile. But she never strays too far from home. Vesper, who is

officially the chief mouser, is busy getting on with the day

job and night job. And she's most active just before dawn,

prime rodent time. Cats are crepuscular animals.

Crepuscular animals means that they're active early dawn and

at dusk. Which may explain why cats are so crazy in the wee

hours of the night. My cats tend to have the zoomies after

we go to bed. The zoomies, you know, when cats have a sudden

burst of energy. We call it FRAP. F-R-A-P.

You can see them, like, make little chirping noises and

they get low to the ground and they dart from here to there.

They're chasing each other, they're vocalizing, just having

a grand time when the rest of us are sleeping. This is all

instinctive behavior. It goes back to the circadian rhythm.

This is an internal clock in our body that we got from our

ancestors. Some cats have another peculiar nighttime ritual.

Vesp in particular, she is a big present giver. I reckon

Vesp probably catches four or five things a day. But why do

cats bring their owners gifts? We know that when a mother

cat has kittens that she will basically bring the prey back

for the kittens so they can learn what kinds of prey are

suitable and kind of let them play with it in kind of

a morbid sense to get practice trying to get the prey.

Whatever the reason, it's a compliment. It means your

family. And there's few things less pleasant when you're

walking without slippers on in the morning. While Vespers

performs the traditional duties, friar John Claw has a more

modern approach. He's very laid back, you know, loves the

public, spends a huge amount of time in the actual visitor

center itself just being stroked. FJC realized his sister

is all over the mice. His talents are better used elsewhere.

FJC's role, it could be said, is more of an ambassador.

He's front of house. She's back of house doing the hard

work. Vespers uses instinct. Friar John Claw uses Instagram.

What started 10,000 years ago as a working

relationship has evolved into a global obsession.

The way the cats have gone viral on the Internet is, I

think, really exceeds anything that anyone would have

expected. I believe the second most common reason people go

to the Internet is to watch cat videos. Cats are the number

one family-friendly thing on the Internet. With more than

25 billion views, a new study found that cat videos actually

boost positive emotions. And decrease negative feelings.

In other words, they provide a big old shot of dopamine. I

think that the Internet has kind of become a space where cat

lovers can all kind of unite and just love cats and laugh at

them. And kind of bond over the silly things that our cats

do. It kind of gives us a space to do that. Bad behavior

makes for a fun video. But it's not always funny when it's

happening in your own home. When we have unwanted behavior,

keep in mind that cats are being cats. They don't know you

don't want them on top of your counter. Rule number one,

never punish a cat. When your cat is doing something

you don't want, and you punish him, he sometimes doesn't

understand why you don't like it. It also makes you feel

unpredictable. All of a sudden you're yelling and screaming

at me and I don't understand what happened. The key is positivity.

And your cat is doing something you don't want, you want to

be able to distract the cat and then tell him, tell him what

you want. Hey, let's do this. Come over here and touch my

hand. Go to your bed. What a smart kitty. Yay. And your cat

goes, yeah, I'm the best cat ever.

For really bad habits, classical conditioning is not enough.

Counter conditioning is the process of changing an emotional

response. This is when you pull out the good stuff, their

favorite, most irresistible treat. Offering something so

highly valuable, rewarding, that the animal goes, oh, that

wasn't so bad. I like this. I always give the example to my

clients of, what if every time you walk out of the house you

had a snarky neighbor and he always says something mean to

you? So you try to avoid going out when he's out there. But

what if every time you went out there I gave you a thousand

dollars? Huh? Then you're like, that's not so bad, right? I

don't mind seeing that guy. What if you saw him four times

today and you got four thousand dollars? You're going to be

like, yeah, bring it on. Where is he? You're going to want

to see that guy all the time, right? So that's what counter

conditioning is. You can change a situation from being

negative to more neutral to then positive.

Like any relationship, it can take patience. But it's worth

it. You get the sense sometimes that they might not need

you, but they still want you. And that's this very unique

and mystical and deep-seated relationship. A cat's true

motivation isn't as easy to interpret as some other pets.

Don't mistake independence for indifference. If you kind of

have that perception that cats are aloof, they don't care

about social interaction, so you don't go out of your way to

interact with them, you're basically shaping the cat to then

also be aloof because that was what you expected of them. In

our work, we found that how the person behaves really does

impact the cat's behavior. Kristen's research is proving how

a cat treats you directly reflects how you treat them. One

step further, her work is showing they might even pick up on how we feel.

So this is known as the social referencing test. And the

whole idea is that this fan with streamers is totally novel

to the cat. So he doesn't know if it's something scary or if

it's something fun. So the whole idea is that the person can

put off emotional cues and see how the cat responds. Carl,

that's scary! Carl, that's scary, isn't it? Oh no! Oh no! Oh

my gosh! Look at that! When Kristen acts scared of the fan,

Carl tries to hide. Is the fan scary? A quick reset and an

attitude adjustment, and it's time for round two.

So if I'm happy towards the fan, we should see if the cat can pick up on my emotions.

Look! Look at what a nice fan! Look at what a good fan! When

she speaks nicely to the fan and is not scared, Carl seems

more confident. Look at those streamers! Look!

The fan is no longer a threat. No more fear!

It's not just Carl. 79% of cats look to their owners for

emotional advice. For scientists, it's another breakthrough.

It seems cats are experts at feeling our feelings.

Good and bad. If you even have a bad mood and you go into

training cats, just walk away. Do not go there. They feel

everything and they make it worse. Asya, come here.

Cats have learned to be empaths, to adapt and survive. There

is an evolutionary advantage to being able to look at social

partners in your environment and gather information. So

if you're unable to read anybody's response, then you have

really cut yourself off from a whole lot of information

about how to react to something potentially dangerous. This

revelation that cats pick up on our feelings then

took a much bigger turn than anyone ever expected.

Back in Japan, Dr. Saho Tagaki noticed something. He

realized that cats in the US and in Japan can see the

difference in behavior.

In Japan, cats are animals that know where to go. But in the

US, even in a place you don't know, cats are very normal. I

think cats in Japan and the US have different personalities.

Kristin and Saho decided to run the same experiments in the

US and in Japan. And they're finding the cats are different.

We're seeing social differences between cats in Japan and

the US. I realized that there is a cultural influence in

cats.

Is human culture changing cat culture? Japan is a small

island country. It's a completely indoor city, which is the

mainstream. We don't have a lot of home parties. The

frequency of meeting strangers is very low. That may have

affected the differences between cats in the US and in

Japan. Their research suggests these cultural differences

might actually be handed down from generation to generation.

And in one culture, it's bringing our species even closer together.

Even before Istanbul was Constantinople, it was the city of

cats. These streets are home to more than 100,000 community

cats, perfectly suited to an urban lifestyle.

Nowadays, when you go to Istanbul, you find these cats

around. They are cats that belong to the neighborhood. They

are not owned by a specific person. People provide the

infrastructure for cats so that they can survive, but they

do not belong to somebody specifically. In 2021, Istanbul

introduced new laws protecting these cats, some of the most

progressive legislation in the world. Treating a cat as an

equal and seeing things from their point of view is the best

way to strengthen the relationship. Hi.

The whole reason my specialty exists is because people

recognize they have this deep bond with this animal, this

deep love. We do it for the love of animals. We do it

because we recognize the human-animal bond. And I don't know

why I'm crying. It's not making me cry. Yeah, this is why

we do it, because we love animals. It's clear we love cats,

which leads us to the biggest cat question of all. Do I

think cats love us? It's really hard to measure emotions in

cats, but I do feel like based on their behavior, based on

their relationship, that cats can form such a deep bond with

someone that it is akin to love.

It's pretty clear that cats provide emotional support, a

feeling of wellness, happiness. This notion that you can

come home and have unconditional love from your cat is something that's vital.

With all the devotion of her family, Eti is perfectly

positioned to become the next big superstar. All she needs

to do is complete the paper hoop.

We're only beginning to realize the potential of cats.

The more we learn, the more we realize just how deep our connection is.

They feel the love that you're giving to them, and they are

kind of feeding on it. Love is going both ways. If we can

learn how to bring out the best in our

felines, they will bring out the best in us.

When everything comes together, the results can be magical.

It's all about the love that you're giving to them, and the

love that you're giving to Eti. It's all about the love that

you're giving to Eti. It's all about the love

that you're giving to Eti. We never dance in the dark. It's

all clear to see. Up with the sky, like it's our reality.

One boy is still another. I want my heart beat. Sisters and

brothers, we are the remedy. We are golden, yes we are. Here

we come to see the stars. We are golden for all to see. We are golden, believe.