Viewing 15 posts - 81 through 95 (of 95 total)
  • Secrecy life of cats BBC2 now
  • Houns
    Full Member

    Hmmm good point, shame there is no way of locating said GPS collar

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Have you ever tried washing a cat? An angry cat could rip a T-rex’s face off, never mind a toddler!

    Drac
    Full Member

    Hmmm good point, shame there is no way of locating said GPS collar

    If you lost a Garmin how would you track it?

    hmanchester
    Free Member

    I actually did stick a GPS device on the collar of my cat. Cheapo thing off ebay, but did the trick very well.

    Reason being it was spending time at another house who’s family were feeding him. Very easy to track down once we got the data back.

    The house in question was about 200m away which I was suprised by at the time. Seeing the track points and time stamps was interesting stuff.

    I could’t really blame the family too much. I didn’t put a collar on him and he was so cheeky he would regularly wander in to houses or peoples cars as they got in. Adorable though and got away with murder.

    mattjg
    Free Member

    Those things will sell well once someone cracks the problem of having them report in real time at a sensible cost.

    mattjg
    Free Member

    I didn’t put a collar on him and he was so cheeky he would regularly wander in to houses or peoples cars as they got in

    A friend’s cat once jumped in a Tesco delivery van, luckily she noticed and had to chase the van down the street as it pulled away.

    Midnighthour
    Free Member

    “Don’t know how cats in groups resolve the territorial issue. ”

    I will call the cats in my house the ‘home group’.

    From observation the home group will allow some select cats on to their
    territory or to pass briefly through without open warfare. Some cats though are not liked by the group. Who is liked or disliked by the home group is not always a unanimous decision but often seems in alignment. Sometimes a cat will express total indifference to an interloper another home cat will dislike. This lack of consensus does not seem to matter to the members of the group.

    I have observed a few times than an unliked cat will gradually become surrounded. However in doing this, the home group do not appear as far as I can tell to act in relation to each other – its more individual defence of the home area. So you get my main 3 all sitting or stalking about in the front or rear garden but almost as if the other 2 are not there, not so much working as a pack like dogs might. However the result to the intruder is clearly an issue as he or she is still being stared down by 3 separate enemies, usually from 3 separate fronts. I think it must make the situation difficult to predict as the interloper has potentially 3 different levels of irritation or anger or attack to cope with, as by not working as a group presumably the home cats may get to different stages of defence all at different times. I have not observed anything further than the ‘staring and stalking’ defence as usually an intruder will take cover or move off, often walking with that weird slow space walk to show lack of aggression.

    Its quite unusual for an unwelcome cat to enter the home territory, I think because of the numbers issue. The one cat who does openly risk it is huge and very assertive. The home cats I think are not willing to take him on as individuals even though if they acted like a group he would not stand a chance. On the other hand, their not acting in a concerted way probably helps to avoid cats partaking in dangerous or risky fights and probably saves lives and prevent injuries. Risk is higher if you think of individual fights than it would be in a group fight for the attackers. Hence being individual seems to me to prevent some nasty experiences and perhaps shows a wise evolution rather than a mearly uncooperative one.

    The 4th cat who is not a fully accepted member of the home group spends less time near the house, so presumably does quite a bit of socialising elsewhere, so he is more likely to play the role of an intruder on someone elses space. This makes his behaviour harder to observe but I have been told by other people that he has cat friends as he has been seen sitting and playing with other cats some distance from the house and a long way beyond the home cats territory.

    I find cat behaviour very interesting as I think it is very misunderstood and misrepresented by humans. Animal societies are fascinating – I have been lucky enough as an amateur to observe group behaviours in pigs and goats over periods of years in the past. Goat social structures are very family based and quite complex.

    Pigface
    Free Member

    Echo that cat behavior is fascintating. Some of the interactions among our cats is just weird but I am sure it makes sense to them.

    Big cats in the wild such as Lions have complex pride relations, is it such a surprise that the small versions that live with us are just as complex.

    All animals have personalities, in the herd I used to milk all the cows were individuals and had there place in the heirarchy of the herd.

    Midnighthour
    Free Member

    Pigface, I don’t watch wildlife programs, so I know nothing of large cat behaviour. I cant cope with watching things being hunted. Ironically I would not have chosen cats as pets because of thier hunting, but they chose our house. I am hugely glad thier hunting seems in such low quantities. I imagine lions working as a group must be interesting. I might try to read up about it, as less gore!

    Is it true that cows enter the milking parlour in the same order every time? I have no experience with cows. I only had 8 goats so a bigger heard of cows must be interesting to watch as so much more scope for group interaction.

    mattjg
    Free Member

    I’m always amazed when there’s a film of 500 wildebeest being chased by half a dozen lions who want to eat their babies, the wildebeest don’t just think “**** this”, turn around, and charge the lions down. Very quickly, there’d be no more lions.

    Some kind of evolutionary behavioural stasis I presume. Collectively, the wildebeest can afford a bit of predation.

    zokes
    Free Member

    I’m always amazed when there’s a film of 500 wildebeest being chased by half a dozen lions who want to eat their babies, the wildebeest don’t just think “**** this”, turn around, and charge the lions down. Very quickly, there’d be no more lions.

    Well, in a rural Britain sense of your question, it seems to be becoming increasingly common for clueless dog walkers to have big problems with an angry herd of cattle.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Well, in a rural Britain sense of your question, it seems to be becoming increasingly common for clueless dog walkers to have big problems with an angry herd of cattle.

    Sadly true, a woman was killed walking her dog on a path by the river here in Chippenham not so long ago, because she held onto the lead, rather than letting the dog go and it find it’s own way to safety. The cows, as usual in these cases, had calves. 😐

    piemonster
    Full Member

    There was a follow up show broadcast last night.

    They provided a summary at the end along the lines of. “cats are independent and probably don’t need humans that much”

    No **** Sherlock, for a lot of people with Cats that’s kinda the point.

    feckinlovebbq
    Free Member

    Sad Cat Diary Couldnt get the youtube video thingy to embed.

    zippykona
    Full Member

    [video]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ObKL11A4W0U[/video]

Viewing 15 posts - 81 through 95 (of 95 total)

The topic ‘Secrecy life of cats BBC2 now’ is closed to new replies.