Hello, I am Simon! Welcome to Simon’s Cat Logic. We’ll be finding out from a cat expert
why cats behave, the way they do! Today we are exploring “Let me In! Let me Out!”.
Well, the thing is, it’s fair to say that if you are a cat owner, then you can basically
say goodbye to privacy, because they will follow you everywhere, especially if they
are an older cat or sort of a lap cat, they want to be with you 24/7.
[Why do cats do this?]
Cats are renowned for having a natural curiosity, and so it’s understandable,
that they’d want to know what’s on the other side of the door. Cats are natural control freaks,
so they’d rather have choice over their access.
In the Simon’s Cat video ‘Let me In’, Simon’s Cat would be less reliant on Simon,
if he had exclusive entry cat flap, such as a microchip cat flap or a magnetic one.
This would allow Simon’s Cat to have the choice of when to come in and out.
One of the benefits of having exclusive entry cat flap, is that it would only let in Simon’s Cat
for example, and not the other cats in the neighbourhood.
[Did you know?]
It’s popularly believed that Sir Isaac Newton, along with his many other achievements, invented
the cat flap or the cat door.
If owners have lived with their cats for quite some time, they can build up quite a repertoire
of communication with their cat. This is where cats will try different things through trial and error
so therefore the cat is more likely to do this next time to get that response.
So over time, cats may learn that if they do a particular type of meow, that their owners
will respond and know what it means. So they might do a particular cry to say “Let outside!”
and a different cry to say "I want some food!"
and a different one again to say that they want some attention.
Recently, researchers have found that cats have got two types of purr including the solicitation purr,
which is basically a different purr that’s a bit more intense, when they want
something from you and they found that humans respond to this.
Many owners think that cats train us, but really we are reinforcing these behaviours.
It’s a two-way form of communications between the cat and their owner.
Cats have excellent hearing, between 55 and 77 000 hertz, this is actually at a higher
frequency than dogs can hear.
Well ‘Let me Out’ is basically a bathroom idea, where whenever you go to the bathroom,
to have a shower or … yeah… sorry… whatever you do.
The story of this comes from my oldest cat Jess, who is a real lap cat, and she wants
attention 24/7, so she’ll follow me around meowing and meowing, and she actually changed
her meow now, so she goes… [Simon makes the sound], like it’s really quite impatient,
and she starts to let me know in her voice. But she will follow me around demanding attention,
and, of course, if you go to the bathroom, she sits outside and just calls and calls and calls,
until you finally come out.