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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie.

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Speaker 1: Cat people are weird. And I say that being a

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Speaker 1: cat person. But every day, it seems there's at least

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Speaker 1: one moment where I looked down and I see this

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Speaker 1: three carnivorous creature with a with a face like a

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Speaker 1: like a demented angel, working up at me, and and

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Speaker 1: and for at least a second, I have this sober

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Speaker 1: moment where I just realized how strange the whole thing

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Speaker 1: is that did here. This this creature lives in my

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Speaker 1: house now, exclusively in the house, with just a little

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Speaker 1: porch on the outside of the house that she can

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Speaker 1: access so that she doesn't run away or be run

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Speaker 1: off by feral hordes in the evenings, as was the

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Speaker 1: case a few months back. Um. But but yeah, I

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Speaker 1: have this moment where I'm just I just realized how

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Speaker 1: strange it is that we that I have this relationship

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Speaker 1: with this other species and that it and that you know,

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Speaker 1: you can you can go crazy and start calling it

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Speaker 1: like love or friendship or whatever, or you can or

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Speaker 1: you can strip it down to just base scientific realities,

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Speaker 1: which we're going to do in this podcast. But there's

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Speaker 1: this bond there and it's it's strange and it's and

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Speaker 1: it's pretty ancient and uh and it's really fascinating to

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Speaker 1: really pick it apart and look at just why this

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Speaker 1: relationship exists. Yeah. I've thought about this before too, just

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Speaker 1: and I've thought about it in the way of you know,

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Speaker 1: you always here that the Eskimos have you know, X

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Speaker 1: amount of words for the words snow because it's so

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Speaker 1: important to them. And then I think about my cat

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Speaker 1: Owen in the amount of nicknames that I have for him,

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Speaker 1: such as the importance um of him to me, you know,

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Speaker 1: and then my husband will look at me so oddly

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Speaker 1: some days when I just, you know, out of thin

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Speaker 1: air create a new nickname same like you know, so

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Speaker 1: rushed about I don't know, uh own and Ski in

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Speaker 1: the Sunshine seven. It just goes on and on and

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Speaker 1: on like that. It's pure nonsense. But I have thought

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Speaker 1: before to what extent am I just insane? Or is

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Speaker 1: this cat bringing out the insanity in me? And that's

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Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about today. Um as cat

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Speaker 1: people and you dog people out there to tune into this,

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Speaker 1: because I think it would be very interesting to get

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Speaker 1: your insights onto what degree you feel like you're being

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Speaker 1: manipulated by your furry little creature. Right at two points

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Speaker 1: I want. First of all, I think everybody I know

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Speaker 1: who happens to have a cat have multiple names. And

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Speaker 1: my wife and I we have multiple names for ours

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Speaker 1: given name Biscuit, Biscuit cat Heath on the official forms,

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Speaker 1: but we we call everything like Bosco Bisco, the Scotty

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Speaker 1: Sisty B yard Master B. While she's no longer yard

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Speaker 1: Master B. Now she's just housemaster b Um Bruskie d

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Speaker 1: with I don't know where that one came from, but

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Speaker 1: you know, you just end up rattling off all these

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Speaker 1: names and the cat doesn't know. The cat doesn't recognize

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Speaker 1: its own name. It just it works more with tone.

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Speaker 1: I understand. But uh, and then the second point that

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Speaker 1: you made, Wait now I forgot the second point. I

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Speaker 1: got manipulation. No, there was another point. What was it? Oh? Yes,

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Speaker 1: cat people. Uh. If you're new to the podcast and

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Speaker 1: you're thinking, oh, well, Robert Julie, their cat people, that

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Speaker 1: this is their bias at play. I will point out

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Speaker 1: we do have an earlier episode titled does My Dog

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Speaker 1: Really Love Me? And that one explores the bond between

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Speaker 1: humans and dogs, which, despite the kind of snarky title,

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Speaker 1: is a is a fair and balanced look at the

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Speaker 1: scientific bond link between canines and humans. Yeah, and we

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Speaker 1: also talk a lot about oxytocin exchange. This is the

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Speaker 1: field gives hormone, and we won't talk about that so

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Speaker 1: much today because a lot of that's in play and

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Speaker 1: we covered it. That's what cat's end dogs, so we

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Speaker 1: know already that it's a beneficial baby. It's the eyes

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Speaker 1: of the baby to pick it up and all sorts

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Speaker 1: of hormonal things are We all snuggle with our with

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Speaker 1: our cats and dogs and we feel better for it

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Speaker 1: and they do too. Um. So let's talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about the stats here, because according to Scientific American

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Speaker 1: in their article the Evolution of house Cats, a third

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Speaker 1: of American households have feline members and more than six

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Speaker 1: hundred million cats live among humans worldwide. This brings us

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Speaker 1: back to our previous episode on the bat, where we

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Speaker 1: pointed out that the bat is arguably the most successful

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Speaker 1: mammal on the planet when you take into account that

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Speaker 1: both domestic cats and the rat have had a little

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Speaker 1: human help and spreading. Yeah, indeed, so the cat has

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Speaker 1: very much had our our help. There. We're partners in

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Speaker 1: crime with the cats and and they're everywhere for it.

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Speaker 1: That's true. And uh, we know this. We know that

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Speaker 1: a cat is a descendant of the African wildcat, and

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Speaker 1: that the domestication of the cat has been in the years,

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Speaker 1: making uh something up to like twelve thousand years and

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Speaker 1: then making Yeah, you look back on the what we

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Speaker 1: can piece together about the history of humans and cats.

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Speaker 1: I mean we you can you can look back to

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Speaker 1: ancient cultures like the Egyptians. Obviously they had a love

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Speaker 1: of the domestic cat. They they would mummify the cat.

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Speaker 1: We have the remains, you've seen the cute little sarcophagi

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Speaker 1: that remained today in our museums. But yeah, when we

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Speaker 1: start looking at the fossil evidence, it's, uh, it's pretty fascinating. Uh,

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Speaker 1: as far as we can tell, you know, cats were

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Speaker 1: first domesticated roughly twelve thousand years ago, and it's worth

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Speaker 1: trying to remember what else was happening at that time

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Speaker 1: about twelve thousand years ago. Also, agricultural societies were really

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Speaker 1: beginning to flourish in the Middle East, in the Fertile Crescent.

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Speaker 1: That's where this is happening. So we've been hanging out

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Speaker 1: with dogs for a while. Humans and dogs went way

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Speaker 1: back because what we were we doing, we were roaming around,

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Speaker 1: digging stuff out of the ground. We were we were

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Speaker 1: chasing down animals, treating them, pulling them down, cooking them up,

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Speaker 1: throwing a few scraps to the to the wolf like

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Speaker 1: animals that gathered on the the the outskirts of our fire.

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Speaker 1: And so we had this bond with the dog because

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Speaker 1: the dog could get something from us, could and could

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Speaker 1: offer something in return. The cats really didn't have anything

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Speaker 1: in the game up until that point. But then we

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Speaker 1: started growing our own food. And one of the great things,

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Speaker 1: i mean, the society culture building things about agriculture is

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Speaker 1: that you're able to grow a surplus. You're able to

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Speaker 1: grow enough to sustain you through the through the winter months.

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Speaker 1: You you grow enough to where where food becomes dominant

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Speaker 1: enough that you don't everyone doesn't have to engage in

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Speaker 1: the creation of it. People can specialize in other things.

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Speaker 1: And out of that though, again you have this surplus

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Speaker 1: of food setting around, so income the rodents to to

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Speaker 1: help you with that surplus of food. There's like, I

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Speaker 1: see you've got some some extra food there, Let me help.

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Speaker 1: And then the cats come and they say the same thing,

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Speaker 1: but they're talking about the rodents. They say, hey, I

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Speaker 1: see you have some some my thing and out around

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Speaker 1: your food. Let me eat them. And as this happened,

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Speaker 1: suddenly we're living in the same space as those cats.

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Speaker 1: We see that the cats are doing something that benefits us,

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Speaker 1: and uh and and they bond begins to form, domestication

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Speaker 1: begins to take hold, which makes perfect sense because cats

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Speaker 1: really are mainly solitary creatures. I mean, they do bond

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Speaker 1: with humans, and they do bond with other cats and

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Speaker 1: sometimes dogs, but they don't hang out in packs as

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Speaker 1: dogs do. And as you noted, a dog would you know,

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Speaker 1: follow around and have a pact mentality. Um. So, once

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Speaker 1: we established ourselves and weren't as nomadic and yes, all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden we were storing lots of grain, then

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Speaker 1: that situation could allow for domestication. And this is pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: Mitochondrial genetic analyzes shows that domestic cats are likely descended

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Speaker 1: from five mother cats from this region, the Fertile Crescent

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Speaker 1: and whose descendants were transported across the world by humans.

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Speaker 1: And then in five five the mitochondrial eaves of the

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Speaker 1: cat world and the earliest evidence of cat human reaction

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Speaker 1: comes from archaeological remains in Cyprus dated two around undred

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Speaker 1: years ago. Um and I interpret this as archaeological remains

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Speaker 1: in terms of depiction of Yes, Cyprus is pretty interesting

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Speaker 1: and how it impacts our our ability to understand the

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Speaker 1: history of our relationship with cats. Uh three, Archael just

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Speaker 1: found a job owed dating back eight thousand years two

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Speaker 1: thousand four, they found a site about fifteen hundred years

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Speaker 1: old that that showed a human buried with a cat.

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Speaker 1: And and one of the things that's important with Cyprus,

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Speaker 1: this is an island. And so the argument here is

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Speaker 1: wildcats are not just wandering up making boats and traveling over.

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Speaker 1: Humans are not going to bring I mean, if you've

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Speaker 1: ever trapped a feral cat or in a cage and

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Speaker 1: seeing how wild it is, your your first thought is not, hey,

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Speaker 1: let me take that on a little boat with me.

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Speaker 1: You've taken on a boat ride and release it all

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Speaker 1: the way over in Cyprus. No, it's uh, it's a

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Speaker 1: it's not something you want to to travel with so

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Speaker 1: the ideas that they brought over domesticated animals, right, which

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Speaker 1: again would be great for pest control on a ship. UM.

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Speaker 1: I should also point out that Uh, in ancient Rome,

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Speaker 1: cats were also prized by scholars because mice are going

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Speaker 1: to get into your house. Not only they're gonna go

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Speaker 1: after your grain, but they're gonna go after your your paperwork.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna go after your your manuscripture scrolls. Right. So

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Speaker 1: the cat becomes surprised in this society because he's gonna

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Speaker 1: help you protect your information, which I thought was pretty fascinating. UM.

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Speaker 1: And I mentioned that Egypt already, but just to put

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Speaker 1: that in in sort of grizzly context, scientists found a

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Speaker 1: cat cemetery in Benny Hassan Uh that apparently contained three

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand cat pies. And you know they had they

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Speaker 1: had Bastete, the Egyptian goddess of love, with the head

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Speaker 1: of a cat. Um and UH. To be convicted of

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Speaker 1: killing a cat in Egypt often meant a death sentence,

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Speaker 1: which which reminds me of there's an HP Lovecraft story

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Speaker 1: called The Cats of of Althar where it's like a

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Speaker 1: modern setting but the cats kind of run the show

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Speaker 1: and if anyone kills a cat there then meet with death.

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Speaker 1: But it's at the hands of the cats. It is

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Speaker 1: interesting too from a cultural perspective, because I was just

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Speaker 1: thinking about how we house cats and and give them

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Speaker 1: a nice, pretty place to live. In other parts of

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Speaker 1: the world there's roaming around, like literally in Rome where

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Speaker 1: there are so many cats, it's almost like their pigeons. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's also interesting to look at the again, that's like

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Speaker 1: the relationship you go back to, you know, ancient Egiant,

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Speaker 1: Middle East Greece people have this bond with the cat.

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Speaker 1: But for a long time in Europe it's during the

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Speaker 1: Middle Ages you see them um associated with evil and

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Speaker 1: the night uh and particularly with witches. Uh. Not to

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Speaker 1: derail too much into witchcraft, which we hope to cover

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Speaker 1: in a little in an upcoming episode, but I was

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Speaker 1: reading about witchcraft in England and uh and at the time,

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Speaker 1: persecuting witches in England was a little, uh, little tamer

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Speaker 1: than it was on the continent, because in the continent

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Speaker 1: you could use all sorts of torture to get exactly

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Speaker 1: the kind of ridiculous uh store array of satanic intrigue

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Speaker 1: that you wanted, you know, it's like, basically, here's the script.

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Speaker 1: You just torture the person until they reproduce it. But

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Speaker 1: you can use these methods um to the full extent

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Speaker 1: in England. So the story has tended to be far

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Speaker 1: less wild and but and one charge in particular found

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Speaker 1: its way into a lot of the accounts, and that

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Speaker 1: is that this old woman is living in this house

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Speaker 1: by herself except for this strange cat. Clearly, what's going

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Speaker 1: on here is the cat is there familiar, it's a demon,

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Speaker 1: and she is suckling it with some sort of bizarre

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Speaker 1: third nipples somewhere. Of course, yeah, that makes total sense.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't like the the six hundreds until they

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Speaker 1: really got over all that in Europe. I was gonna say,

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Speaker 1: I can see how people would look to a cat

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Speaker 1: and think that it might have some sort of magical

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Speaker 1: attributes to it, only because if you've ever seen a

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Speaker 1: cat jump up like ten feet in there on you know,

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Speaker 1: some sort of surface that's maybe like, you know, two

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Speaker 1: inches wide, it does seem sort of like this magical,

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Speaker 1: crazy skill. And uh so I can see how the

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Speaker 1: imagination would lend itself to that. They seem like they

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Speaker 1: can teleport, they can their masters of of stealthy movement

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Speaker 1: and uh, and all of this comes down to what

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Speaker 1: are what are they basically designed for? What if they

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Speaker 1: evolved to do? They're killing machines machines? Yeah, um recently

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Speaker 1: an article came out about this and uh and I

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Speaker 1: thought it was very interesting because, according to George Fenwick,

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Speaker 1: he's the president of American Bird Conservacy, cat predation is

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons why one in three American bird

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Speaker 1: species are in decline. And if you have a cat

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Speaker 1: that has access to the outdoors, you're you're probably familiar

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Speaker 1: with this. Chances are they have brought home either a

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Speaker 1: live board bird or a portion of a live bird,

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Speaker 1: or some sort of bloody trophing that may or may

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Speaker 1: not have come from the insides of a bird. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is that, apparently, umu, the cats only bring

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Speaker 1: home a quarter of what they kill, so left forty

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Speaker 1: rod where they died. So if your animals bringing home

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Speaker 1: bloody trophies, just remember that you're only seeing part of

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Speaker 1: the equation here. Yeah, this is really interesting to Researchers

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Speaker 1: at the University of Georgia attached something called kitty cams

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Speaker 1: to sixty cats, so each owner would put a small

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Speaker 1: video camera mounted on a breakaway collar on the cat

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Speaker 1: in the morning, and then let the cat out, and

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Speaker 1: then they'd removed this camera and mountain and they would

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Speaker 1: download the footage of the carnage. Really basically a Faces

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Speaker 1: of Death, except except with some of some added napping

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Speaker 1: and and butt licking thrown in. Yes, yes, but looking yeah,

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Speaker 1: well and that's a different kind of thing. But um.

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Speaker 1: Each cat's activities were recorded for seven to ten days,

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Speaker 1: and the cats usually spent anywhere from like four to

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Speaker 1: six hours outdoors. But the really the most surprising thing

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Speaker 1: they found is that the majority of the house house

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Speaker 1: cats weren't hunters, and that only forty percent of the

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Speaker 1: cats in the study again house cats uh stopped chased

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Speaker 1: or killed other animals during the day. And another thing

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Speaker 1: they discovered is that and then you'll have to think

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Speaker 1: about this in next time your cat cozy's up to

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Speaker 1: you and and nezzles you. Um. Cats were seen eating

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Speaker 1: road kill, climbing down into storm trains and lapping up

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Speaker 1: sewer water, and eating insects like walking sticks and earthworms. Well,

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Speaker 1: the bug eating doesn't bother me. That doesn't so much either.

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's probably more the road kill and

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Speaker 1: certainly the risky behavior. You know, because because and I

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Speaker 1: say this is, you know, the cat that we have,

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Speaker 1: Biscuit wandered up to us as like an outdoor previously

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Speaker 1: owned animal, and then was outdoor for a little bit,

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Speaker 1: then indoor outdoor for a long time, and then we

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Speaker 1: moved to an area where there was a feral pack nearby,

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Speaker 1: and she's getting kind of kind of up there, and

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Speaker 1: the best theory that we have is that it came

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Speaker 1: to the point where she couldn't defend her turf anymore.

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Speaker 1: The the young you know, criminal element came around and

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Speaker 1: they said, hey, this is our turf now, and she's like,

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Speaker 1: all right, that's cool, I'll find some more humans, I guess.

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Speaker 1: And so we had to find her, bring her back,

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Speaker 1: and now she's indoor. But but ye had just to

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Speaker 1: to to know all the dangers that this animal to

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Speaker 1: give this bond with can encounter during the day in

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Speaker 1: an outdoor environment, particularly in an urban environment. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of this was caught on camera so they

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Speaker 1: could say, yeah, cats do actually engage in risky behavior,

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Speaker 1: I mean, are younger ones and the other side, because

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Speaker 1: I know this becomes an argument between cat owners, you know,

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Speaker 1: the whole outdoor versus indoor outdoor scenario. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: other side is that, yes, an indoor cat is safer,

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Speaker 1: but they they spend six days the indoor oudoor and

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Speaker 1: spend six d eight hours outdoor because they love it.

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Speaker 1: That's what they've evolved to do. They've evolved to live

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Speaker 1: in an outdoor environment, eating varmints, not living in a

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Speaker 1: living room, chasing balls and listening to whistles and you know,

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Speaker 1: and eating all day. So it's it's it's weird. We

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Speaker 1: find this is what happens when humans manipulate the course

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Speaker 1: of nature. We find ourselves and in uh, in some

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Speaker 1: strange and not particularly satisfying places. You know. Holly Fry

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Speaker 1: of pop stuff is our residant cat experts. Oh did

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Speaker 1: she like cats? That's a joke. Um, yeah, yeah, she's

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Speaker 1: she's the one. She's got the library. Yeah, we all

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Speaker 1: come to her, We do all all our cat questions

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Speaker 1: and problems. She will answer them. Um. But she had

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Speaker 1: told me that this is interesting that in feral cat

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Speaker 1: colonies that they actually work in concert, almost like a

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Speaker 1: pack together, and that they will take turns in groups,

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Speaker 1: both sleeping in different places and hunting, so we'll share

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Speaker 1: a particular space whether or not author using it to

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Speaker 1: hunt or to sleep in together, which shows a level

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Speaker 1: of cooperation I didn't realize was actually in cats. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I mean the feral situation is it's a whole

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Speaker 1: topic unto itself, because then we we've you know, it's like,

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Speaker 1: do you we want to control that in that population

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Speaker 1: because it's an invasive species. It's killing all of these

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Speaker 1: birds and and shipmunks and what have you, um and uh,

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Speaker 1: and potentially endangering domestic cats. You don't necessarily know what

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Speaker 1: kind of of diseases the feral pack is carrying and

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Speaker 1: potentially in you know, in getting involved with your cats. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But then you you get into arguments, all right, to

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Speaker 1: what extent can you actually do a spay and neuter program?

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Speaker 1: You're never gonna get one of those programs. But then again,

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Speaker 1: if you just go in and wholesale exterminate stray cats,

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Speaker 1: other ferrells are going to move into the area anyway.

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Speaker 1: So it's again humans start messing with the natural swing

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Speaker 1: of things, and and everything gets a messy pretty quickly,

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Speaker 1: it does. It does. Um, well, let's talk about their

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Speaker 1: anatomy that how what makes them such stealthy killers. Yes.

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Speaker 1: One of the things I thought was really interesting is

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Speaker 1: that twenty six of their two forty four bones reside

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Speaker 1: in their tails, and this is actually what allows them

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Speaker 1: to have the sort of crazy balancing powers that they have. UM,

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Speaker 1: and the movement powers. And they also have a detached

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Speaker 1: clavical which allows a catch shoulders to move back and

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Speaker 1: forth in rhythm with its legs and kind of squeeze

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Speaker 1: through the space. Says that they do. And cats can

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Speaker 1: feel vibrations on the ground with their paws, which alerts

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Speaker 1: them to the potential prey. Yeah. You you get a

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Speaker 1: taste of that. Whenever you you have like a blanket

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Speaker 1: out the cat is walking across it. You know, you

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Speaker 1: can tell how tenderly they're walking and how how closely

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Speaker 1: they're analyzing the attention of the surface underneath. You know

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Speaker 1: they're there. Or if you have a toddler tearing down

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Speaker 1: the hallway, you know, another room away, you can automatically

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Speaker 1: look at the cat and the cat will sense it first,

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Speaker 1: whether or not you can hear. It's really interesting. Um.

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Speaker 1: Another thing about them is their whiskers are rooted really

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Speaker 1: deeply into their face, and that's an area that's rich

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Speaker 1: nerves and blood vessels, and these whiskers are so sensitive

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Speaker 1: that they can detect the slightest directional change in the wind.

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Speaker 1: And of course, uh, and of course they also have

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Speaker 1: excellent hearing. If you've ever you've ever watched a cat

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Speaker 1: just setting there, like even when they appear to be

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Speaker 1: kind of asleep and they're not completely asleep, their ears

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Speaker 1: are very active. There's a sound on the other side

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Speaker 1: of the house, and you'll see there there you're sort

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Speaker 1: of listen to that. There's something going on outside. They're

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Speaker 1: kind of half listening to that as well, so they

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Speaker 1: kind of move slowly like a little satellite dish. That's

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Speaker 1: what I've noticed. Um. And then another really cool aspect

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Speaker 1: of cats I think is just the mechanics of their

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Speaker 1: per boxes. Right. It's thought that the laryngeal muscles are

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Speaker 1: responsible for the opening and closing of the glottis and

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Speaker 1: this is the space between the vocal cords, and this

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Speaker 1: results in a separation of the vocal cords producing the

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Speaker 1: pur sound. And then purring is really unique. And then

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Speaker 1: it's a result of both the inhalation as well as

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Speaker 1: the exhalation, as opposed to account just me owing and

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Speaker 1: using the exhalation. So there are a number of different

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Speaker 1: theories as to why they purr. It's it's one of

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Speaker 1: these behavioral questions that we're still figuring out an answer too. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Veterinarians generally suggest that purring on a basic level, especially

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Speaker 1: between a kitten and it's mom, is saying, hey, hey mom,

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Speaker 1: it's me. I'm all right, I am here, and it's

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Speaker 1: also a part of their bonding mechanism. But obviously there's

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Speaker 1: something else going on, or there's more going on in

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Speaker 1: other situations, for instance, when cats purr to their humans,

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Speaker 1: what's that about, right? Well, yeah, But here's the interesting

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Speaker 1: thing too, is that um Dr Elizabeth Vaughan mougen Paler

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Speaker 1: has suggested that the per with its low frequency vibrations,

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Speaker 1: is a natural healing mechanism. So sometimes you hear a

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Speaker 1: cat per when it it is injured or or very upset,

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Speaker 1: as you know as well as you know when you're

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Speaker 1: petting in and it's experiencing some sort of pleasure from that.

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Speaker 1: But it's interesting that she says that purring maybe linked

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00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:39,640
Speaker 1: to the strengthening and repairing of bones, relief of pain,

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00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:42,639
Speaker 1: and wound healing, and that made me think about some

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00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:46,480
Speaker 1: of the studies that we've seen before concerning meditation and

390
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:52,000
Speaker 1: chanting and the vibration actually in the fruit very healing, yeah,

391
00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:53,760
Speaker 1: for the body, and a lot of that though have

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Speaker 1: to do more with inflammation in mucus. But I thought

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00:20:56,880 --> 00:20:59,880
Speaker 1: that was an interesting detail. But I think that when

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Speaker 1: we're talking about purring, you're talking about, um, the ways

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Speaker 1: in which we can well cats can manipulate us. But

396
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Speaker 1: before we get to that, I wanted to talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about mimicry. So I don't do you have

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Speaker 1: you ever heard a cat like mimic a bird? Oh? Yeah, yeah,

399
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Speaker 1: to the extent that it sounds like a bird. I'm

400
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 1: not I'm not all that convinced, but certainly they have

401
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:23,399
Speaker 1: a particular sound in the same way that there's a

402
00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:26,800
Speaker 1: They make a certain sound when they're encountering cats that

403
00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:29,359
Speaker 1: they probably don't like, which generally is all of them,

404
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:31,720
Speaker 1: you know, It's that kind of kind of thing. But

405
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:34,920
Speaker 1: then there's that noise that they make when they see

406
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Speaker 1: a cat, generally through the window, uh, you know, generally

407
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:39,880
Speaker 1: asking where they can't get to the cat, I mean,

408
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:41,639
Speaker 1: they can't get to the bird, and so they're just

409
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Speaker 1: setting there watching and getting a little agitated and excited,

410
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:47,400
Speaker 1: and the next start going, yeah, it's so odd because

411
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Speaker 1: those vocalizations really do sound bird like, and my cat

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Speaker 1: will just kind of sluice his face up to the

413
00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 1: window and do that and just look, you know, apopolectic.

414
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Speaker 1: I mean, he looks like he's about to go nuts.

415
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Speaker 1: But I thought there was really a cool mimicry A

416
00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 1: bit a piece of information here. In this two thousand

417
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,479
Speaker 1: and ten Live Science article, they reported that a wild

418
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:10,719
Speaker 1: cat species in the Amazon imitates a call of its

419
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:14,560
Speaker 1: intended victim, which is a small squirrel sized monkey known

420
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:17,159
Speaker 1: as a pied tamarin. They're super cute. Ever seen them

421
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:20,159
Speaker 1: before as well? I'm sure they are cute and tasty

422
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:22,520
Speaker 1: to a cat um. So when the cat mimics the

423
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Speaker 1: monkeys call, the tamarins are then compelled to come out

424
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Speaker 1: and come down out of their trees and investigate because

425
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:32,080
Speaker 1: it's like, what's that familiar yet unfamiliar voice I hear?

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Speaker 1: And then when they do that, of course the cat pounces.

427
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Speaker 1: That was a little bit frightening, But it's the key

428
00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:40,879
Speaker 1: here those two is to think of that power and

429
00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:44,680
Speaker 1: that ability as as we try to understand cat's interactions

430
00:22:44,680 --> 00:22:48,360
Speaker 1: with humans. They they there is this this inborn ability

431
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:51,320
Speaker 1: to mimic prey. To what extent are they using that

432
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:57,959
Speaker 1: mimicry mimicry power to hack the human being that presumably

433
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 1: on them? All right, well, let's ponder that for a moment,

434
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and then when we get back

435
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:09,479
Speaker 1: we will see to what extent they're manipulating us. All right,

436
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: we're back, um, just to to rewind us a little

437
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 1: bit real quick. We're talking about purring, and it's heltive properties. Uh.

438
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,239
Speaker 1: If you were into poetry or you're just into cats, uh,

439
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 1: check out a poem by Coleman Barks titled Purring. This

440
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:29,160
Speaker 1: was featured September eight on Garrison Keeler is the Writer's Almanac,

441
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 1: and it's a really beautiful poem that equates purring with

442
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 1: poetry and uh and and talks a little bit about

443
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:37,920
Speaker 1: the science. I can't read the whole thing, I'll link

444
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:39,919
Speaker 1: to in the blog post, but there's a great, uh,

445
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:44,160
Speaker 1: great little section um where the poet says, here's something

446
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: I've never heard of. Feline purrs and two conditions when

447
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 1: deeply content and when mortally wounded to calm themselves reading

448
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:53,639
Speaker 1: for the death opening, which I just find kind of

449
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:56,200
Speaker 1: kind of beautiful. And and I also I have to admit,

450
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: when my own cat was lost, I would have read

451
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: that poem and that kind of get me a little

452
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 1: bit of solace because I thought she wasn't going to

453
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 1: come back. And so I've thought to myself, well, if

454
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,119
Speaker 1: something has happened to her and she is injured and

455
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 1: she's you know, on her last day out there somewhere,

456
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:19,680
Speaker 1: than she's purring, you know. Yeah man, oh okay um, yeah, Well,

457
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:22,879
Speaker 1: I think that's the That's the thing that about purring

458
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:25,959
Speaker 1: it is it is so comforting on that level. If

459
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: you've ever heard a cat pr and especially if you're

460
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:31,480
Speaker 1: you're petting the cat, it is there's something about it

461
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: that just makes you feel like you're more, you know,

462
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 1: in a nice warm quilt on a winter's day with

463
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: a mug of hot chocolate. I sound so much like

464
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 1: a crazy cat leader right now. So I'm gonna acknowledge

465
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: that there's some I freaking who it is. I want

466
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: to say it was like Kick Kuala or somebody. There's

467
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 1: a musician who used some some purring noises in one

468
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:52,959
Speaker 1: of his tracks and it's like a really soothing kind

469
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: of ambient track and selling this is kind of purring

470
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: noise in the background. Well that's the thing about it, um,

471
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: there is a level of manipulation behind it that's making

472
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,880
Speaker 1: you feel all uh, you know, kitten parts and rainbows.

473
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: Researcher Karen Macomb documented something called a solicitation purr. Yeah. Now,

474
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: this is apparently the purring that occurs first thing in

475
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 1: the morning. Like to put you in my situation, I

476
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 1: am waking up in it where I'm not the only

477
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 1: beginning to wake up. The cat believes it's definitely time

478
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: to wake up. So it's like five or something, and uh,

479
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: and she'll come and she'll want a walk on my pillow,

480
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: which is the one place I mean she she doesn't

481
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: walk on the kitchen cabinets and in the kitchen and

482
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 1: the cutting boards and all that, thank goodness. But but

483
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: aside from that, the one area that I'm like, this

484
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 1: is my place. Please don't sit here with your your

485
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,679
Speaker 1: paws that have been God knows where my pilloup. This

486
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 1: is where my yeah, just leave this place sacred to

487
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 1: the humans. But first thing in the morning, course she's

488
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:51,239
Speaker 1: walking on that pillow, purring and wants to set right

489
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 1: next to my head. And this is end. This is

490
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: the solicitation purring. And it's apparently it's like an alarm clock.

491
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 1: It's not the the you know, some people have cats.

492
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: It will be a little more aggressive that'll like to

493
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: do a little swiping of the face to wake him

494
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: up in the morning. But but this is basically the

495
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: cat trying to wake you up with with with a

496
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,880
Speaker 1: more subtle means. Yeah, it's it's funny though. That kind

497
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: of perr has a lot going on behind it, and

498
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 1: it's different from any other purrs that you're going to encounter. Yeah, actually,

499
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: technically it's it's pretty amazing. Um. Macombs says that it's

500
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: produced with a low fundamental frequency and its harmonics by

501
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: muscular activation, but then also voices a cry. She says,

502
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 1: probably with the inner edges of the vocal chords, which

503
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: is then superimposed on the sounds frequency spectrum. And she

504
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: said that cats have just about the right size of

505
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: vocal folds to produce a cry that is similar to

506
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: a baby's. So there is a coincidental element, she says,

507
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:52,159
Speaker 1: to this, and she said, in fact, the meow can

508
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: some remarkably like a crying child, which actually is true, um,

509
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 1: different from the purr, of course, but she's saying that

510
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 1: they might have there's there's this idea that there's sort

511
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: of natural selection in play that is creating these sounds

512
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: emanating from the cat. In other words, it would behoove

513
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: them to just put a slight bit of a cry

514
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: behind a purr that's nearly you know, perceptible, in order

515
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: to get you up to feed them. Yeah, it's kind

516
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: of like it's almost like a backhanded compliment or something

517
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: where somebody's like saying something really sweet. It's not a

518
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: backhanded compliment, but where someone saying something really sweet, but

519
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: with an agenda, you know, like like like oh, you're

520
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: you're so great, honey, especially when you um, you know,

521
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: fix me coffee? Could you give me some coffee? That

522
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,360
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you know. So it's this is fascinating

523
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:44,719
Speaker 1: because the owl. Obviously I can definitely see that, like

524
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 1: because because the cat will me out and it's either

525
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: really sweet or it's really irritating. Um, And I can

526
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: definitely equate that with a with a baby's scream. But

527
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: the purr, it's like the purl with this hidden agenda

528
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: of of infant mimic cree. It's kind of like the

529
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 1: medicine with the jam on top of it to soothe

530
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 1: it going down. Because because when the when the cat's

531
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 1: purring next my head in the morning, I may be

532
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 1: irritated about the pillow sitting, but I'm not irritated about

533
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: the purring, because the purring is soothing. But but subconsciously

534
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: it's waking me up. I know. It's it's an amazing

535
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: ability right to both soothe you but also to get

536
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: you to get up and get them food. Also, speaking

537
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: of me ow and mewing, there's a there's a two

538
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: Cornell University study and they were looking like a hundred

539
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 1: different vocalizations from twelve cats. And and again, if you

540
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,159
Speaker 1: live with a cat, you know they have varying ways

541
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: of saying things. They it's not language by any means,

542
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: but there they're they're their pitch, their tone, the way

543
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: they stressed the me ow changes, and they and they

544
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 1: found in this study particularly that on one hand you

545
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: had the more pleasant, less demanding news and ease tend

546
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: to be shorter with the energy spread evenly through the

547
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,959
Speaker 1: high and low frequency. The sounds start high and they

548
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: go low, so this would be like me ow me,

549
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: okay meal. So start with the big me little now,

550
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 1: all right, and then there's the the the other side

551
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: of the colon cone. These are the urgent less pleasant

552
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: and these are these tend to be longer, and they

553
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: stressed the owl over the me and there with more

554
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: energy and the lower frequency. So it's more like me

555
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: ow does exactly. So there you go. So just that

556
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: that's just a simple look at how meals can change.

557
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: And of course they change greatly, like like I imagine

558
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: you've found that with your cat, there also their self

559
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: there is this like pathetic version up in the owl.

560
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: It will happen like like if you try and put

561
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: them in a bathtub or something. Yeah, but and these

562
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: sort of water is not that will be less crazy

563
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: cat calls. Um. But I didn't want to mention too

564
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: that that study had twenty volunteers and some of whom

565
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 1: I believe didn't even own cats, and they were able

566
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: to pick out these or rather uh match these sort

567
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: of I guess you'd say psychological states with these different

568
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: kinds of me outs, which underlines that it's not just

569
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: a thing where crazy person living with a cat has

570
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 1: is reading a lot into what's going on. It's not there, No,

571
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: it's that this species has learned to game the human system.

572
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: It's learned how to manipulate this, and it's it's pretty fascinating.

573
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 1: Having said there, there are a lot of study that

574
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: there about cats and cat ownership, some more interesting than others,

575
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: some more impactful in others. We ran across one that

576
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: was talking about gender roles and and there's some interesting

577
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: statistical data is in there about how uh, women tend

578
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: to attach more to their cats than men do. And

579
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: then and then there's a I don't know, it's it's interesting,

580
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: but it's more just statistical, it's more about It feels

581
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: like it's more about the humans and about the cats.

582
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: So yeah, and it's hard to say because they didn't

583
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: necessarily look at the data and say is this because

584
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: is this is the nurture versus nature thing? Like women

585
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: tend to be more nurturing because this is the role

586
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: that they take in society, and therefore they're going to

587
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 1: connect with the cat more. Yeah. I mean, cats love

588
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: the ladies, and lord knows the ladies love cats. But

589
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: there's not really all right, well, let's talk about those

590
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: ladies that love cats. The men and the ladies who

591
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: love cats, and let's let's do a little versus dog people.

592
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, this is the classic rivalry dog people

593
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 1: versus cat people. Um and and you see it like

594
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: in any workplace. In this workplace, for instance, you definitely

595
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: have the cat people. It's like you, me, Holly, Tracy,

596
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: I'm not sure who else offhand. But then then they're

597
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: the dog people like Josh and Shock they both dog

598
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: people died in the wool, hardcore horrible dog people now

599
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: and then uh, my own editor that we both work

600
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: closely with Alson Laddermilk very much a dog person. But

601
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:50,480
Speaker 1: is there anything is is there really something different about

602
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: us as people or is it with our personality? It

603
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: is our personalities different? Or is it just the fact

604
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: that some people have a dog so doing cat again?

605
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: A ton of studies about this. I tend to think that,

606
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: you know, making generalized, uh you know, sweeping generalizations about

607
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: people's personalities and their paths. It's kind of a little

608
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 1: bit nuts, but I think it does bear talking about.

609
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: A study. This is from the Psychology Today article Personality

610
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: differences between cat and don dog owners. They talked about

611
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 1: Sam Gossling, who is a psychologist at the University of

612
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: Texas and Austin. He conducted a web based study. Now

613
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: we're talking about more than four thousand people responding to

614
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: this study asking whether they were dog people, cat people,

615
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: neither or both. Uh. The same group was then given

616
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: forty four at forty four item assessment and um, this

617
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: measures them on what they call the Big five personality

618
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: dimensions that psychologists often used to study personalities. Okay, now

619
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,959
Speaker 1: you want to know the results, right, Okay. The results

620
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: showed that dog people were generally about fifteen percent more extroverted,

621
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: intent more agreeable. Those aren't he numbers, by the way,

622
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: both of which dimensions are associated with social orientation. In addition,

623
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: dog people were eleven percent more conscientious than cat people,

624
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: and conscientious meaning that they had a tendency to show

625
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: self discipline and to complete tasks and aimed for achievement. Um.

626
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 1: This trait also shows a preference for planned rather than

627
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: spontaneous behavior. You know, the thing that really drives drives

628
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: home here though, is that owning a cat owning a

629
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: dog are two totally different things. And certainly if you

630
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: have if you owned a cat and you're thinking about

631
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: owning a dog, be aware of that because it is

632
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: a it is a very different obligation. Cats dogs are

633
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: more social animals, which which can lead to and in

634
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: a way a deeper bond with that dog. But there

635
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 1: comes with that a lot of responsibilities and and and

636
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: a lot of socialization that has to take place. So

637
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: you have a dog, you haven't you need to take

638
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: that dog out and it needs to go on walks,

639
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 1: You need to encounter other humans. It needs to encounter

640
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: other dogs, and needs to encounter other dogs and humans

641
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 1: at the same time. So there's a there's a lot

642
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: of socializations occurring with the dog. And I feel like

643
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: there's a lot of force socialization that is that is

644
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: coming with being a responsible dog owner. Yeah, I was

645
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: about to say there's going to be a level of

646
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: extra version that you're going to engage in. I mean,

647
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: just take a look at any local dog park and

648
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: he will see this, right. So do just want to

649
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: meet new people, meet new dogs, sniff new butts. That's

650
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:23,760
Speaker 1: just what they do. Meanwhile, the cats are a different

651
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: thing altogether. The cats are very much I'd rather not

652
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:29,399
Speaker 1: meet new people, certainly, no more than one or two

653
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 1: at a time. I do not want to meet yeah,

654
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: do not bring a kitten around here, or I'm gonna flip.

655
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:38,720
Speaker 1: It's a it's an end. They're they're a little more

656
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:40,879
Speaker 1: you're going out of town for a weekend, you might

657
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: have somebody come and check in on the cat or

658
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,840
Speaker 1: the cats. That's cool. But the dog you get, generally

659
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to board that that creature, or you're

660
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:49,319
Speaker 1: gonna have to take it with you, or you're gonna

661
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: have to arrange for somebody to really dogs set hardcore

662
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 1: for it. There, it's a little more of a hands

663
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:58,239
Speaker 1: on engagement. So I wondered what this study seems to

664
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: argue that different types of people grab take towards one

665
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: animal or the other. But I feel like it's just

666
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:06,720
Speaker 1: as much ownership in relationship with that creature molds the person.

667
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,280
Speaker 1: Are you saying is the tail wagon? That? Yeah, exactly,

668
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: because you know it mentions the ming more task and

669
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: goal orient it or whatnot. When when you're a dog owner,

670
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: you have to be otherwise you're gonna have a horrible,

671
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: horrible dog. Okay, Well, let's talk about cat people. What's

672
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: happening with them? All right? So they are about twelve

673
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 1: more neurotic. However, they were also eleven percent more open

674
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: than dog people, and the openness trait involves a general

675
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:39,720
Speaker 1: appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity,

676
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: curiosity in a variety of experience. And then people with

677
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: high scores on openness, of course we know this already

678
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 1: are more likely to hold unconventional beliefs, while people with

679
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: low scores on openness, and they say in parentheses dog

680
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:57,879
Speaker 1: people tend to have more conventional, traditional interests. I think

681
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: part of and this is me just reading the stuff,

682
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: but that maybe to be a cat owner you have

683
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: to sort of create a lot of ideas. You have

684
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,040
Speaker 1: to There's a lot more mystery with the cat to

685
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:11,319
Speaker 1: read into, like why doesn't the cat want to hang

686
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 1: out with me? What's it? What's it doing in the

687
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: next dream? Why is it talking at the wall? You

688
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:19,399
Speaker 1: know where? So now it's the tail of wagging the cat. Well,

689
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: I think on a very basic level, cats are harder

690
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: to understand than dogs, and they're harder to train, certainly

691
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: because the dog is a social animal. So there are

692
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: a number of ways to mold the dog based on

693
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 1: its social interactions, and it's it's it's natural um need

694
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: for a social order and you know, a dominant male,

695
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: m alpha male figure and its environment, that kind of thing,

696
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,359
Speaker 1: whereas the cat doesn't have that. So you know, you

697
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: you want to train up a dog, right, you can

698
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:49,400
Speaker 1: call up a dog whisper, you know, or take the

699
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 1: dog to a dog academy. That for the most I

700
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: think there's somebody that calls himself the cat whisper for

701
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 1: but for the most part, there is no cat whisper,

702
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 1: and there there are for the most part, there aren't

703
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: other than ali and there are no cat academies really

704
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: to take them take the cat to. I mean, cats

705
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,280
Speaker 1: are and I'm generalizing cats are more of a mystery

706
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 1: than dogs. Now, Holley's is that they can be trained

707
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 1: through clicker training. Yeah, you have to do it when

708
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: they're younger though, of course, um and then many many

709
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: treats are involved, which makes sense because again the cats

710
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 1: just gaming you. Um. Alright. So again I think of

711
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 1: these things more as sweeping generalizations. But it's interesting to

712
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: talk about. And this of course leads us. All roads

713
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 1: lead us to where do cats really reside in this world? Like,

714
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:38,399
Speaker 1: where's the one place where they are front and center?

715
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: Because otherwise they're they're behind closed doors. We don't see

716
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:44,399
Speaker 1: them much, right, Yes, cats basically own the Internet. They're

717
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: just everywhere. Like every other YouTube is is a cat

718
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 1: clip cats attacking bags, cats looking weird, cats, sounding weird, cats,

719
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 1: being good cats, being bad cats leading a hitler. It's

720
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 1: you could just go on and on. It's like there

721
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: is a generation of memes that that they are a rise.

722
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: You have Internet superstars that are felines, like it's so,

723
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: I think it's Maru, the Japanese cat that's adorable looking.

724
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,280
Speaker 1: There's a there's a grumpy cat that's uh, that's suddenly

725
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: a big hit. It looks like a grumpy human. It's

726
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: where there's l O L cats and of course the

727
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: whole I mean there's Yeah. Actually Wired magazine Wired dot

728
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: com has a great article about everything cat internet and

729
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 1: cat culture internet that you could ever want to know about.

730
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: The article is called Online Cat Industrial Complex. Yeah, we

731
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: will link to that in the blog post that the

732
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: company's this episode, and there's a lot of great info

733
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: in there. They mentioned Maru quite a bit. But the

734
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: really amazing thing that that really feels on target with

735
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: the stuff to blow your mind is the Google x lab.

736
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, this is great because what they are

737
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 1: trying to do is to create a concept of a

738
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: thing for a brain simulation project. And what did they

739
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 1: do and what is what is the one thing on

740
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:04,439
Speaker 1: the Internet that's a simple concept that there's a ton

741
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 1: of data on cats. So the researchers fed ten million

742
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: random YouTube stills into a brain simulation and then this

743
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 1: silicon cortex quickly, really really quickly developed the concept of

744
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 1: the cat. And this is amazing because basically a machine

745
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,240
Speaker 1: has given the chance to learn what humanity is about

746
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 1: through its YouTube use. And the first thing they come

747
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: up with his cats. So it's it's so I like

748
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: to imagine again we've talked about the Internet is this

749
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: complete um collection of world knowledge and in a sense,

750
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 1: the Internet as human culture like in a way that

751
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: in a in a way that is not only an

752
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: outpouring of who we are, but it is who we are.

753
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 1: And conceivably, you can imagine an alien civilization encountering this Internet.

754
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: Maybe we're still around, maybe we're not, maybe we've become

755
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 1: something else entirely, but they encounter this Internet, this vast

756
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:00,120
Speaker 1: sea of data about who we are, and they're like,

757
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,879
Speaker 1: what is all this chaos? Let's let's start rooting this out,

758
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 1: so they send something in or they analyze it with

759
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 1: their alien data analysis ray. And the first thing they

760
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: come up with is like, well, first of all, they

761
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: are these things called cats. We assume these are the masters.

762
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: This is apparently the dominant species. And then there is

763
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: a secondary species, a primate species called the human. And

764
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: as best we can tell from YouTube clips, they occasionally

765
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: hit each other in the groin with with with the

766
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: with softball bats. Generally it's the the larval humans that

767
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,879
Speaker 1: do this. They feed the cat masters, they look after them,

768
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: and then they have a lot of sex. Yeah, they

769
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:41,839
Speaker 1: like to knock boots a lot, and they like to

770
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: watch it, yes, but mostly they serve their masters, the felines. Right,

771
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: they just do the knocking boots on the side. We

772
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: don't know why they're obsessed with it that they must

773
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 1: have only done that and then punched each other in

774
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: odd places. So anyways, it's it's fascinating to think of

775
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: that in terms of to what extent, to what extent

776
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: are we just super obsessed with cats and uh and

777
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 1: in what will future civilization make of it? Um? In closing,

778
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: I mentioned the story that the cats of Althar by

779
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 1: HP Lovecraft and and I'm just gonna read just a

780
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,760
Speaker 1: quick ex excerpt from that. It is said that in Althar,

781
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: which lies beyond the river sky, no man may kill

782
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: a cat. And this I can verily believe as I

783
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 1: gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For

784
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: the cat is cryptic and close to strange things which

785
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: men cannot see. He is the soul of Antique Cagyptus,

786
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: the bearer of tales from forgotten cities in the ore

787
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: and oh fear. He is the kin of the Jungles lords,

788
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 1: and heir to the secrets of oory and sinister Africa.

789
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language.

790
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 1: But he is more ancient than the Sphinx and remembers

791
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: that which she hath forgotten. That my friend was the

792
00:41:55,520 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: cat's pajamas. All right, well, um, let's call the robot

793
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: over here and seef we have a quick listener mail

794
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: to run through. Here's equipment from Jeff Jeff Wrightson and says, hi,

795
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: just listen to your episode three minutes till impact. I

796
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: used to work for an airline, but I stayed on

797
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: the ground. I'm kind of afraid of flying. I worked

798
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: with the tiny jets once I checked the flight crew

799
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: to see if they were ready to board, but really

800
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 1: had to use the bathroom. But couldn't wait the thirty

801
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: minutes to an hour for the plane to leave because

802
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:28,439
Speaker 1: I drink a lot of coffee, so I used the lab.

803
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,319
Speaker 1: It was stationary, the engine was off, an airplane door

804
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,759
Speaker 1: was open, and still I had the same reaction when

805
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: I break down and use the bathroom on a plane

806
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: in flight. I had to push. I guess you could

807
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: describe it as the Whizz Willie's from Hell great show,

808
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: and my mind gets blowing on a regular basis of Jeff,

809
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 1: So there you go. So um, Whizz Willie's induced by

810
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 1: fear of flying. I just I found that strange and interesting,

811
00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: the mind body connection right there, there you go. So

812
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 1: on that note, if you have something you would like

813
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: to share with us, um, particularly um you cat people

814
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 1: and dog people out there. If you have thoughts on

815
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: the human cat relationship, if you have some personal experiences

816
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: and I know you do, related to cat vocalization and

817
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: cat manipulation of their human servants slash masters, then let

818
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 1: us know about it. You can find us on Facebook

819
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 1: and Tumbler. We are Stuff to Blow your Mind on

820
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: both of those pages, and you can also find us

821
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: on Twitter, where we go by the handle blow of

822
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: the Mind, and you can also drop us a line

823
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:39,879
Speaker 1: at blow the Mind at discovery dot com for more

824
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How

825
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:47,840
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com