01x18 - Cats And Dogs

[bunniefuu]

(soft music)

- [Cat] I heard today's episode

is all about cats and dogs.

- [Dog] Really,

the whole episode?

- My cat, his name is

Middleton Night Cortimouch.

- [Cat] Imagine introducing

yourself with that name.

- I trained him to

give high fives.

- [Cat] High fives.

- Usually it happens around

four in the morning on my face.

- I love that my dog loves me,

my dog loves me no matter what.

- We have a lot of cats.

Kayleigh, Ginger, Smudge, Boo.

Oh, wait.

No, no, he's dead.

- My dog, Beans is

a German shepherd.

He'll talk to you.

- Like they can bark, or like,

you can make it

whatever you want.

So they can be like ruff, ruff.

And you can be like,

I know I also want to watch

the Real Housewives

at Beverly Hills.

- [Dog] I don't care

would anyone think

dogs are the best.

- [Cat] Right.

- Right.

- [Narrator] Cats

and dogs are our

ancient, fuzzy friends

who stand by our sides,

cuddle in our laps and remind

us that we are not alone.

- [Dog] Over here.

- So we tend to think

of our own history

kind of in isolation.

We are very important species,

we're to top of the ladder.

It's humans all the way.

But really our history

is the history of us

and our cats and our dogs.

- It's the history

of a relationship

that's mutually

beneficial between species

and has lasted for tens

of thousands of years.

And that's remarkable.

- They truly are our companion

and we have this deep

connection and understanding.

- [Narrator] This is the

history of 14,000 years,

7.4 million likes and

6.5 billion snapshots

of our cuddly companions.

(cats meowing)

(upbeat music)

(curious music)

- [Dog] Hey, get out of my shot.

Now move.

- [Cat] Dude, you're

such a prima donna.

- [Dog] Got that right.

- [Narrator] As a human species,

we have evolved alongside

millions, if not billions,

of living creatures.

And of all those magnificent

creatures, there are two.

- [Dog] It's my destiny.

- [Narrator] Which have

come out of the wild

and into our homes.

- [Dog] To be cuddled.

To have my poop

cleaned up every day

for the rest of my life, woo.

- [Female cat] Must

be hard out there.

- [Male cat] Yeah, and

the wild on the street.

(car honking)

What was that?

- [Female Cat] I don't know.

I've never been outside.

- [Narrator] Today there are

approximately 814 million

cats and dogs in

our homes worldwide.

- [Dog] Holy, moley.

- [Narrator] That's

373 Million cats

and 471 million

dogs in counting.

- That means 814

million cats and dogs

who know where they're

gonna wake up tomorrow,

who have food and love.

And that's a wonderful world.

- [Narrator] And every

day up to 70,000 cute

kittens and puppies are

born in the US alone.

(soft music)

- The main reasons

people love dogs

are the companionship they bring

and the psychological benefit.

When you look at dogs,

when you pat dogs,

you have serotonin,

dopamine, oxytocin.

All of these reactions are

happening that make you happy.

And people love that bond.

- Owning a pet lights

up all the same centers

in our brain as holding a baby.

Cats in particular

are like a newborn.

They also have

facial proportions

that are very much

like human infants,

small faces with

really large eyes.

Holding a cat, we feel

compassion and loyalty and love.

- [Cat] Oh yeah.

Give me some more of that.

I love it.

- [Narrator] And however

many breeds of cats and dogs

there may be in the world,

there are only two

kinds of humans.

In 2014, a study conducted at

Carol University in Wisconsin

asked 600 students if they are

a dog lover or a cat lover.

A surprising 60% pledged

their allegiance to the canine

while the feline contingent

clocked in at a measly 11%.

The other 29% like

both or neither.

Hmm, okay, so make that

three kinds of human.

The students also

answered questions

about their personalities.

It turns out dog lovers

tend to be extroverts.

- [Dog] Oh, I'm so excited.

What are we doing today?

I can't wait to

get out of the car.

- [Narrator] While

cat lovers lean toward

more solitude and creativity.

- [Cat] Oh, silence

breeds genius.

We already knew that.

- I'm aware there's some

research that suggests that

cat people tend to be a

little bit more introverted,

but also more intelligent

than dog people.

But I tend not to mention

that to dog people.

- Cat people like to

differentiate themselves

from dog people.

- Cat lovers are

amazing individuals,

and probably better

than everyone else.

- Dog people like to

differentiate themselves

from cat people.

- Dog lovers are people that

love spending time outdoors.

- Dog lovers are basic,

basic, and basic.

- Dog lovers are overbearing.

- Both groups think the other

group is absolutely insane

for loving that pet

as much as they do.

- Cat lovers are like

weird Internet people

who want to dominate

something with their love.

They just want to be like.

You, I want to smoosh your face.

They don't do so much.

- People that love

their dogs a lot.

I don't want to see 55

Instagram stories of your dog.

So, you know.

- [Narrator] In 2010,

the first ever image posted

on Instagram was of a dog.

So where does our

obsession come from?

It turns out that

for our best friend

three has never been a crowd.

The year is 1914.

Workers uncover a

grave at Oberkassel

near the city of

Bonn in Germany.

(man speaking German)

The remains of a dog, a

man and a woman are found

dating back to the

paleolithic era,

the old stone age

around 14,000 years ago.

- This is really the

first evidence we have of

a dog that we would understand

to be a domestic dog

human relationship.

Prior to that, we not really

seeing that same kind of thing.

So 14000 is a nice kind

of minimum timeframe

for the establishment

of this relationship

between humans and

wolves that has led to

what we now know of his dogs.

- [Dog] So you say

we come from wolves?

Cool.

- [Narrator] Yep, the

modern domestic dog

is a descendant of the wolf.

In search of food, wolves

started to move closer

to hunter-gatherer camps.

- There were likely

groups of wolves

that lived near humans

because of all the garbage

they were throwing out, bones

with a little meat on them.

Likely we were able to take

some puppies from a wolf.

We started to really select the

ones that were the sweetest,

less likely to bite,

to live in our group.

And we really dictated

their co-evolution with us.

Potentially, we even have

that co-evolution reflected

in our own anatomy.

There's hypothesis that the

whites of the eyes of humans

evolve to allow us to silently

communicate with our dogs

during hunting.

- [Dog] I like to hunt too.

In fact, I can't control

the impulse to hunt.

Nah, I think it's in my DNA.

- [Narrator] As for

domesticated cats,

nine lives will begin with

one death 10,000 years ago.

- The very first cat that

anybody's kind of happy with

is from a sight on Cyprus.

It's a burial of a woman and

she has her hand out in front.

And then there looks to be like

the remains of a small cat.

There were no cats

on this island

so that the cats

came with people.

So that is also a signifier

of some kind of relationship.

And it is a community

that had farming.

- Cats have been

incredibly important

after we developed agriculture

because they helped

protect our food stores,

especially from rodents

that carry diseases

that they can pass on to us.

- What's curious though,

is that there's about a

5,000-year gap after that.

And the next time that really

we see any kind of cats

that appear to have some

kind of domestic or at least

close relationship with people

is really with the Egyptians.

- [Cat] So you forgot

about us for 5,000 years?

Well, I'll try not to

hold it against you.

- Cats are integrating

in interesting ways

into human societies,

but in ways that are

very different than now.

And certainly the role

that they play now

is a much more

recent phenomenon.

(fireworks exploding)

(trumpet blowing)

- The invention of cat litter

actually marked a

quantum leap forward

in terms of the

domestication of cats

and our relationship with it,

because once cat litter

was invented in the 1930s,

suddenly having a cat in

your home was a doable thing.

- [Dog] All right, being able

to poop inside is pretty cool,

but we got let inside

before you cats.

Oh yeah.

- [Narrator] During

the Victorian era,

dogs or at least certain

polite dogs were invited in

from the cold of the

backyard or kennel

to join the family

by the fireside.

And by the mid-19th century,

their best mates are

proudly showing them off.

June 1859, Birmingham, England

setters and pointers competed

in the first modern dog show.

- [Man] Such boys, such grace.

- [Narrator] The winning prizes?

g*ns for their owners.

By the end of the 1860s,

the National Dog Show

boasts 700 dogs and

20,000 paying visitors.

In 1873, the Kennel Club

is founded by S.E.Shirley

and 12 other

gentlemen to provide a

consistent set of rules

governing the popular

new activity of

dog showing and field trials.

It is the first national

kennel club in the world.

In New York city,

the highly popular

Westminster Kennel Dog

Club Show debuts in 1877,

drawing an entry of 1,201 dogs.

- [Announcer] The

Westminster Kennel Club Show

at Madison Square Garden has

every blue-blooded canine

from the conventional

to the exotic,

competing for dogdom's top spot.

- If you look at the seven

classifications of dog breeds

in the Westminster Dog

show, for instance,

- [Announcer] the

Choice is narrowed to

a boxer, a miniature pinscher.

- They all come

from Victorian era.

So we have the non-working

breeds, the hunting breeds,

the terrier breeds.

It was each of the

roles they've filled

in Victorian England.

And it persists

with us to this day.

- [Narrator] At the 2021 show,

there are 2,500 competitors

representing 209 breeds.

- [Dog] What you got there.

- [Narrator] Wasabi, a Pekingese

wins the $50,000 cash prize.

- What's important

to know though,

is that dogs were not the first.

There were chicken

shows before dog shows,

and in fact, a couple

of decades before.

It's also the same

for pigeons as well.

And if you look at the sheer

variability in fancy breeds

of chickens and pigeons,

people were having a really

good time messing with

what these animals

look like, you know,

in terms of feathers or

color or height or shape

or any number of things.

(pigeons shrieking)

Then once dogs came into this

whole way of relating to them

that takes off and just

goes absolutely insane.

And it was very much

a northern Europe,

mid-19th century phenomenon.

- Just as dog shows

become popular as a way

to show off different

breeds of dogs,

cat shows follow after that.

- [Narrator] In 1871, the

first cat show is held

in London's Crystal Palace,

and in 1895, New York's

Madison Square Garden welcomes

the first National Cat

Show in the United States.

- And we see the

evolution of more kinds of

cat breeds and cat grooming

practices to show them off.

- Comb a little here,

comb a little there,

fluff it up nicely.

(cat licking paws)

Yeah. Beautiful.

- [Narrator] At the 2020 Cat

Fanciers' Association Show,

a copper-eyed, short hair

Manx called Arctic Storm

wins Top Cat and Best of Breed.

But unlike the

Westminster Dog Show,

there are no cash prizes.

- [Cat] Hey, a cat is

supposed to make a living.

Oh yeah, throw me a

ball instead of money.

Actually, it's kind

of interesting.

It's orange.

- [Narrator] Instead, the

winner receives a pet portrait,

which has a long

tradition of its own

involving three letters.

- Even before the Internet,

people still took lots of

photos of cats and dogs.

There's Victorian images of

cats in cute little outfits

as dogs as well.

We've used them in

family portraits

since the origins

of photography.

- [Narrator] And in the 1870s,

photographer Harry Pointer

is the first to turn his cat

photos into humorous memes.

- Harry Pointer is really

the OG pet influencer.

The photos he would

take with his cat

doing funny human-like things

was very ahead of his time.

He even started writing

captions with the photos.

(joyful music)

- [Narrator] And over

130 years later in 2007,

Eric Nakagawa and

Carrie Anabesami

started a website sharing

funny photos of cats

with cat's speak

written on them.

- I can have

cheeseburger classic,

classic LOL cat.

- [Narrator] The site

quickly becomes popular

with users being able to

upload pictures of their cats

and turn them into

LOL cat memes.

- The cat is making this face.

- [Narrator] LOL cat memes

average over 100

million views a month.

- I'm in your folder,

corrupting your files.

(woman laughing)

Yeah, oh my God, I love this.

- [Narrator] Today's cats

measure their popularity

in millions of likes,

But over a hundred years ago,

it was more like

24 frames a second.

- One of the first cat

videos ever was Thomas Edison

in his Fort Lee Film Theater.

(curious music)

He could record anything.

Thomas Edison has the

first motion picture

and their first thought

is let's get two cats

to box each other with

cute little gloves on.

- [Narrator] And in

the early 20th century,

during the silent film era,

there's one four-legged star

that will capture the hearts

of the American public.

It's World w*r I and a

stray dog finds himself

in the middle of a b*ttlefield.

US Corporal Lee

Duncan swoops in.

- Got you, buddy.

- [Narrator] And rescues

the young German shepherd.

He names him Rin Tin Tin

after a good luck charm

that French children often

gave to American soldiers.

When the troops return

home, Rinty tags along

and relocates to Los Angeles

with Corporal Duncan.

In 1922, he takes

Rinty to a dog show

where film producer,

Daryl Zanik.

- See you in pictures.

- [Narrator] pays $350

to film the shepherd

for his silent movie.

A star is born.

(dog whining)

- Action.

- After the w*r, there

was a big push in the US

to create a narrative

of us as the heroes

and that what we did was right.

One way we valorize

our behavior in the w*r

was through Rin Tin Tin,

this puppy that was rescued

from the German side.

And he goes off to star in

movies as a hero himself.

- [Narrator] Rin Tin

Tin stars in 27 films,

a radio show called the

Adventures of Rin Tin Tin.

And he earns over $6,000 a week,

the equivalent of $84,000 today.

- [Man] Wow.

- [Narrator] In 1932, at

the right old age of 14,

Rinty dies snuggled on the

lap of the blonde bombshell

Gene Harlow.

And unbeknownst to him, Rinty

becomes the de facto patriarch

of a long line of

Hollywood dog stars.

Dogs may dominate

the wide screen,

but it's cats that will

hog the pixel limelight.

- [Male Cat] How's

it going over there?

I just had lunch.

Thank guys like teaching my

grandma how to use the Internet.

- [Narrator] In

2005, Steve Chan,

one of YouTube's founders

posted a video of his cat,

Pajamas playing with a rope.

It's the very first cat

video uploaded to YouTube

marking the beginning of

our digital infatuation.

- [Cat] I'm flying.

- We are fascinated by them.

We will watch cat

videos constantly.

It's one of the

most searched terms

on the Internet consistently.

(curious music)

- Cat videos were

made for the Internet.

Number one, they're cute, they

do psychotic all the time.

They're scared of cucumbers.

How is that not entertaining?

(cat puffing)

(man laughing)

- You could watch

that all day long.

- 50% are like saves a baby

or does something cute.

And then 50% are like,

(dog barking)

hey, this cat attacks this dog.

That's trying to walk by it.

(cat meowing)

What are cats

being this?

It's probably the best

way to describe it.

(cat meowing)

- [Narrator] In

2015, CNN declares

there are possibly 6.5 billion

cat photos on the Internet.

- [Cat] Got you that.

There's a lot of us down there.

- [Narrator] Nearly

one for each of

the 7.8 billion people on Earth.

That same year, almost half

of all original YouTube videos

are of people's pets.

And watching cat videos

reaches an astronomical

26 billion views,

making them the single

most popular category.

(baby crying)

- Pets in this regard

are like everything else

that we use as signifiers

to communicate and broadcast

who we are as people and the

Internet is a game changer.

You take a picture with your cat

and you talk about

how great your cat is.

Now you're telling the

world I am a cat person

that says something about

you to the rest of the world.

And the Internet

facilitates that.

- [Narrator] September,

2012, Tarter Sauce,

a cat with feline

dwarfism shoots to fame

when her owner's brother

posts her comic natural scowl

on Reddit.

Grumpy Cat quickly becomes

an Internet sensation.

A single photo gains over 1

million views in just 48 hours.

- Grumpy cat, I think

was the very first

Internet superstar cat.

Grumpy Cat was named that

because Grumpy Cat had a mouth

that turned down like a frown.

- Cat faces are a little

less emotive than dogs,

(dogs barking)

certainly less

emotive than human.

So to see Grumpy Cat who

is clearly communicating

such a strong emotion

from our perspective,

it really tapped

into the fact that

humans communicate facially.

And we saw this thing

and thought that was just

the funniest, cutest

thing we'd ever seen.

- [Narrator] Over her

short seven-year life,

Grumpy Cat publishes

books, stars in a movie

and is set in wax

at Madam Tussauds.

She's laughing, or

is that scowling,

all the way to the

bank with a fortune

estimated at 100

million dollars.

- Cat videos got like

millions of views,

yet my cats have done nothing.

It's quite upsetting.

My cats are a negative

drain on my finances.

And I think that in

this day and age,

they really should

be contributing

because if you can't,

you are just lazy.

- [Cat] Lazy?

We call it lazy?

I'm not lazy.

Look at this I kick the ball.

Oh, I wait for it

to come back to me.

That's hard work.

- [Narrator] So how

big do you have to be

to stand out from

the Internet crowd?

For one cat, the answer

was a staggering 22 pounds.

Her name is Tombili,

which in Turkish means chubby.

Tombili chooses not to run

through the narrow lanes

of this ancient city

with a clowder of cats.

Instead, she prefers to

lounge on the sidewalk,

taken the sites and be

fed by her neighbors.

- This chunky p*ssy

cat wants some food.

- [Narrator] Tombili's laid-back

recline and friendliness

make her a popular attraction.

- The religion of Islam

is fairly pro-cat.

Cats are described in the Quran

as being a very clean animal.

They were liked by Mohamed.

And so people want

to take care of them.

- Chunky want the cable?

- A pampered 10 years go

by and in August, 2016,

Tombili takes her last breath.

Soon after, 17,000

people sign a petition,

urging local officials to

erect a statue in her honor.

It works.

Sculptor Shaval Shehan

creates a bronze replica

of Tombili in her favorite spot.

And on October 4th, 2016, also

known as World Animal Day,

the masterpiece is unveiled,

but only a month later,

the statue is stolen.

- [Man] Oh, no.

- [Narrator] And during the

search, the Internet explodes,

including a tweet from

the Russian Embassy.

- [Russian Man] The news

that Tombili sculpture

has been stolen has

echoed greatly in Russia.

Russians are also uncomfortable

with this situation.

- [Narrator] After four

days, the statue is found

blocks away and put back

in its rightful place.

- When you think about

how the Internet exploded

with the theft of the

statue of Tombili,

it's just emblematic

of how the Internet

feels about cats period.

- [Narrator] But

when does infatuation

become a dangerous obsession?

In ancient Egypt, the

worship of one cat

will bring 2,575 years of

civilization to a crashing halt.

It's 525 BCE, Cambyses II,

the reigning Persian king

is eager to conquer Egypt.

While researching his

enemy, he discovers that

the Egyptians love their

cats above all other animals.

- One of the earliest

examples that we have

of cats being

elevated in a society

would be the ancient Egyptians.

And part of this

reason is because

there was the goddess, Bastet.

She was worshiped

by the Egyptians.

- [Narrator] Bastet is

represented as a woman

with a cat's head and

symbolizes domesticity and love.

- They would call

him Bastet's cat.

So her personification on Earth,

which with her cats,

were also protected.

- [Narrator] To

safeguard their lives,

the Egyptian punishment

for k*lling a cat

is the death penalty.

So Cambyses comes up

with a devious plan.

He instructs his men

to paint images of cats

on the soldiers' shields.

And when he invades Egypt,

Cambyses places a large pack

of cats at the head of the army.

(cats meowing)

- It stopped them

completely in their tracks

when it came to attack

because they couldn't

hurt the cats.

- [Narrator] The Egyptians,

afraid of k*lling the animals

and defending the

goddess Bastet,

surrender, and the country

quickly falls to the Persians

and Cambyses smugly marches

past the bowing Egyptians,

throwing cats in

their terrified faces.

- What does that say where

you're willing to lose a battle

because you don't

harm an animal.

It shows the

Egyptian's compassion,

but it's a brilliant

strategy by the Persian king.

So very interesting

military tactic.

- [Narrator] But one person's

God is another's devil.

Fast forward 1,758 years,

it's the Middle Ages.

And the cat's number is up,

the number or nine, to be exact.

- In the middle ages.

Pope Gregory IX was a very

well documented cat hater.

And he was surrounded

by advisors who were

also cat haters.

- [Narrator] It's

1233, Vatican City,

through confessions extracted

by his papal inquisitors,

Pope Gregory IX

starts to believe that

cats are the devil's

favorite animal

and the idol of all witches.

- They're too cute to be holy.

- They shift in time from

being really amazing things,

to really terrible things,

associated with witches and

with night and bad luck.

And then there's

like, there a misogyny

that plays a role in this

because cats are associated

with women to their detriment,

because if they

are associated with

witches or terrible things,

they get persecuted

clearly as a result.

- [Narrator] So on June

13th, Gregory issues

the Vox in Rama, an official

decree declaring that

cats are the

instruments of Satan.

- Death to all cats.

- [Narrator] The Pope

places a target on the head

of every cat and sets

off the great cat purge

across medieval Europe.

- Those cats were rounded

up and slaughtered.

And we know now that

rats carried the plague

and without cats,

the rats flourished.

- [Narrator] And

over 100 years later,

an estimated 25 million

people die in Europe

during the Black Death, the

bubonic plague carried by rats.

- Because of Pope Gregory.

Europe had no protection from

a major rat-borne epidemic,

like the plague.

- [Narrator] Unfortunately,

the Europeans m*rder*d

their best ally in the

w*r against the pandemic

and forever tarnished

the reputation of cats.

- That a medieval association

of cats with witches

persist to this day.

I mean, think of the

Halloween decorations you buy.

They often show a

black cat with a witch.

- My pretty.

- I really hate the

superstition that

black cats are bad luck,

or like they're

sent from the devil.

- [Cat] I've never met a witch.

Never.

- I hope that rumors are true.

And I hope cats are some

way affiliated with Satan,

because I'd love to open that

channel of communication.

Yeah, how often do you

get to talk to the devil?

- I think that

part of the reason

why cats have been

vilified so much

is because of the

mystery that is cat.

- [Cat] No one knows

what we do at night.

They know it's great.

They open the doors

and let us outside.

They have no idea what we do.

We'll keep it that way.

- We have a very hard time

looking at a cat and saying,

I know what you're thinking.

And you can't say that

about dogs, really.

No one loves you like I do ♪

Say, woo-hoo ♪

They will cross over to our

side of the communicative fence

and say, hey, I love you.

- [Dog] I do, I do.

Huh, what's that?

I love you, too.

- I feel like dogs

are your best friend.

They always run up to you.

They cuddle with you.

They always wanna be with you.

- [Narrator] But if a dog

is number one on our planet,

what about it's number two?

- [Dog] Now pick it up.

- [Narrator] In Denver, there

are more dogs than children.

In 99,000 households

across the city,

the dog population is 158,000,

versus 140,000 children.

- I mean, let's be honest.

If aliens were to land on Earth,

they instantly would think

that the animals are in charge.

- Have you ever seen

anything like it more?

- You feed your dog.

You pat your dog.

Your dog dictates your life.

- They drive them everywhere,

like yoyos on string.

- Your dog goes to bathroom.

You pick up after your dog.

- [Narrator] And all those

Denver dogs make a lot of poop.

- [Dog] Oh, yeah.

Oh not yet.

No, just a little.

Okay, see you later.

- [Narrator] In 2018 alone, an

estimated 3,595 gallons worth

were dumped in parks and on

sidewalks across the city.

- That's a lot of poop

to pick up, my man.

- Let's leave this planet.

- In the city of Denver,

we see there are more

dogs than children.

And I think this is a

reflection of demographic shifts

happening in the US.

- People are waiting

longer to have kids,

but that caring

instinct is still there.

And so they're having that

filled with their pets.

- Are you my baby, pooch-coo?

- Yep, that's me.

- [Narrator] If dogs truly

are replacement babies,

then of course we'll dress

them up in the cutest onesies.

- [Dog] What?

Hey, I just got here.

I don't know if I'm

comfortable with that.

Can we talk about this?

- [Narrator] It's

December, 2020,

a TikTok video of an Italian

greyhound from Montreal

is released.

- [Dog] I have so

many cute outfits

planned for this year

that I couldn't wear.

So I just wanted to show you.

See this.

I love it.

I couldn't wear it.

Love it, couldn't wear it.

- [Narrator] Teka is

modeling the outfits

she couldn't wear during

the COVID-19 lockdowns.

- See this?

I love it.

I couldn't wear it.

Love it, couldn't wear it.

Then there's this.

Love it, couldn't wear it.

Love it, couldn't wear it.

And this was supposed to

be my cute costume, but no.

- [Narrator] She's an

overnight sensation.

The video hits 7.4 million likes

and her TikTok account

has 1.4 million followers.

- Everyone knows and loves Teka.

And I think it's

because the content was

so adorable and unique

with this tiny little dog

wearing these elaborate

custom couture outfits.

The personalities people

create for their pets are often

tied to things that

they're passionate about,

they love, that make them happy.

So for example, pet influencers

where the human is

super into fashion,

you might see the pet

become a fashionista.

- [Cat] Out of my

way, I am beautiful.

- [Narrator] Carl Lagerfeld,

the iconic designer

for the house of Chanel

turned his Birman cat

into the wealthiest

feline on Earth.

- Choupette was the most

important person in Carl's life.

- Choupette began

modeling in 2012,

made 3 million dollars

from two gigs alone

and has appeared

alongside supermodels

from around the world.

She has a makeup line,

a Chanel shade of blue

inspired by her eye color

and a range of handbags

featuring her fuzzy face.

And when Lagerfeld

passed away in 2019,

Choupette inherited part

of his 300 million fortune.

The fashionable feline

continues to live the high life

in Paris, collecting royalties

from her most recent book

and merchandise.

And thanks to Choupette,

in 2013 the Birman cat

becomes the 15th most popular

feline breed in America.

- While breeding is

not as common in cats,

there are cat breeds that

can get very expensive,

like the Ashera which

goes for $150,000.

- [Narrator] At 150 K,

the Ashera tops the list

while a Savannah kitten

is around $50,000

and the Bengal breed

can cost up to $25,000.

- [Cat] Really?

Holy f*ck.

- [Narrator] And in the

world of dog enthusiasts,

breed popularity also

influences our pet choices.

- Three quarters or 80%

of all dogs in America

are one of 15 different breeds,

even though there are

probably 200/250 breeds.

And so you have this

power law effect

where very much

like bay baby names

is being driven by fashion.

Once Paris Hilton is walking

around with a Chihuahua

in her purse, people start

really liking chihuahuas.

- [Dog] God, when is

this fad gonna end?

I can't move in here.

- [Narrator] With celebrity

comes a price tag,

and when you're no longer a

dog, but a valuable asset,

there's one number you

might need on speed dial.

(keys beeping)

New York, 1946, Poodle breeder,

"Count" Alexis Peloski

names his favorite pup

of a new litter, "Masterpiece".

Convinced he's

something special,

he starts the pup's career

in his high-end

dog grooming salon

that caters

exclusively to Poodles.

Masterpiece soon

begins modeling in ads

for stockings, beer and

furs at $25 an hour.

He makes more than human models.

He also appears

on TV talk shows,

goes to Cuba as a

goodwill ambassador

and gets invited to

Paris for fashion week.

The pampered poodle

makes $11,000 a year,

over 150,000 in today's money.

- [Dog] Good gravy.

- [Narrator] But in

the spring of 1953,

- [Man] Who took my dog?

- [Narrator] Masterpiece

mysteriously disappears

from Pulaski's store.

- [Police] Urgent, all unit,

we got a dog emergency.

- [Narrator] The police

are quickly notified.

- Notify all states.

- And a 13-state

alarm is sounded

desperate for his safe return.

Pulaski posts 3,500 flyers,

offers a substantial reward

and will even give up one

of masterpiece's own progeny

in exchange.

However, the mystery

is never solved.

Perhaps masterpiece

quietly slipped off

to enjoy a well-deserved

retirement.

- When a celebrity

pet goes missing,

it captures the

public's attention

because we love our pet so much.

And this was true from

the 1940s with Masterpiece

to current day, Lady

Gaga's French bulldogs.

- [Narrator] Los

Angeles, February 2021.

- What happened on this street

is now being investigated

by members of the

robbery and homicide team

at Los Angeles

Police Department,

who were told that

Mr. Fisher was shot

with a semiautomatic weapon

and was lucky to survive.

- I heard a lot of

screaming last night

and that's when the

g*nsh*t went off.

And then my neighbor

texted us, oh my God.

It was Lady Gaga's dog walker.

I'm like what.

- Lady Gaga's dogs

being stolen at gunpoint

was headline news.

- Luckily the dog

walker survived

and the dogs were

eventually recovered.

- That unfortunately

has been happening a lot

lately with French bulldogs

in particular being stolen

because of their high value.

- We do have an obsession

with the concept of

the purebred dog.

Trends and dog ownership

have driven a market

where prices go up and up and up

for more and more rare breeds

that tend to have small litters.

Their prices can go into the

many thousands and sometimes

hundreds of

thousands of dollars.

- [Narrator] A Chow Chow

puppy can fetch up to $11,000.

- [Dog] I double as a duvet.

- [Narrator] $12,000

For a Lowchen.

- [Dog] That's it.

- [Narrator] 14,000

for a Samoyed pup.

- [Dog] Oh, you

guys are so loaded.

Who's rich, who is rich?

- [Narrator] And in 2014, two

twin male Tibetan Mastiffs

sold for a combined

$3.2 million.

- [Dog] Holy .

- [Narrator] The sale was

maybe the largest ever

for a pair of dogs.

- [Announcer] The Oakland

Kennel Club puts dogs on parade.

Mexican Chihuahua.

Oh, hello, stiff leg, wire hair.

- [Narrator] Pedigree or

mutt, pure-blood or mongrel.

Beauty is in the eye of the

beholder, but at what price,

what number can you put on love?

- I buy so many

things for my cat,

aside from the essentials

like food, dish bowls

also get him calming

herbal sprays,

because he has

separation anxiety.

- [Narrator] Today the

global pet care market

is worth $232 billion

and is estimated to grow

to 350 billion by 2027.

- You got to buy college.

You got to buy ba*ls.

You get some

quality rubber toys.

- Squeaky toys,

non-squeaky toys,

furry toys, non-furry toys.

- I buy dog food.

I buy cat food, wet and dry.

- [Narrator] Pet food alone

accounts for $91.1 billion

of the global pet market.

- Trimmers, shavers,

different leashes,

weird little outfits

because I like dressing

them up against their will.

- [Cat] Every day,

every bloody day.

- [Narrator] A TD Ameritrade

survey reports that

dog owners on average

spend $1,000 a year

taking care of their dogs,

with the biggest portion

being food.

Cat owners on the other hand,

spend approximately $800,

and it's not only necessities

that pet owners are buying.

Outfitting your cat

and dog has become

a multimillion dollar business.

More than 40% of dog owners

and 25% of cat owners

buy clothing or

costumes for their pets.

- Certainly American

society is really

a consumerist society.

We get trained from

an early age that

spending money on something

as a way to show that

that thing is important to us.

So when we really love our pets,

the way that makes sense to

us to show our love for them

is to spend money on them.

- [Dog] See you in

a few days, Barking.

- [Cat] Hmm, can I

schedule a massage?

- [Narrator] In 2011,

Lori Wayner launches

the Barkingham Pet

Hotel Resort and Spa.

It's a Palm Desert,

California-based

boarding and grooming

facility for birds,

cats, and dogs

that offers the same amenities

as a five-star hotel for humans.

Her mantra, you go on vacation.

Why shouldn't your pet?

- [Cat] I could stare

at that all day.

- They have pools.

They have jacuzzis for the dogs,

treadmills for the dogs.

- [Dog] The road

just keeps going.

- There's a salon for them

to get their beauty services.

Pretty much everything you

would want from a luxury stay.

your pet can have at this hotel.

- [Cat] I'm gonna get

my nails done, now.

- [Narrator] And vacations

are just the start.

If Fido plans to

get married one day,

Barkingham Palace offers a

complete wedding package.

- [Male Dog] And do

you take this man to be

your lawful wedding husband?

- [Female Dog] I do.

- As we get closer to

our pets and seeing them

as members of our family,

we want to give them

the same general care

that we would ourselves.

It's a brilliant demonstration

of that closening

of those ties and of the way

in which we perceive dogs,

which is pretty different

than it would have been

a couple hundred, a

couple thousand years ago.

- [Narrator] Thousands

of years ago,

the human-animal bond began

as a working relationship,

one that continues to this day

and for the truly dedicated cat,

it's not so much a

nine-to-five job as 24/7.

In St. Petersburg, Russia,

cats have been the guardians

of the famous Hermitage

Museum for over 250 years.

Catherine, the Great

brought them in

to deal with a growing

rat infestation.

- [Woman] Felines have

inhabited the cozy cellars

for centuries, surviving

czars and communists.

- [Narrator] And at 10

Downing Street in London,

the official residence and

office of the UK Prime Minister,

one of the highest profile

working cats is Larry,

an adopted brown and white Tabby

who since 2011 has

kept the mice away.

- He has a job.

He's a mouser and he

does it quite well

because they keep opening

the door for him every day.

- [Narrator] Some

studies estimate that

cats k*ll hundreds of

millions of small animals

in the US alone and

14.7 billion worldwide.

In fact, there's

reason to believe that

the humble house cat is even

deadlier than any big cat

on the planet.

- Cats are successful

at their hunt,

approximately 70% of the time.

And that puts them up at the

very upper echelon of hunters

on this planet.

(big cats roaring)

- [Cat] Mm, fresh meat.

I didn't k*ll it myself, but

I would've if I could have.

- [Narrator] Cats have

acute hearing skills,

which allows them to detect

prey they cannot see.

They can hear up

to 100,000 hertz,

which is in the

ultrasonic range.

That's nearly three

times better than dogs

whose hearing range is

35,000 to 40,000 hertz

and five times

better than humans

who clock in at a

meager 20,000 hertz.

A cat up to three feet away

from the origin of a sound

can pinpoint its location

to within a few inches

in a mere 60 milliseconds.

They can also hear sounds

at great distances,

four or five times

farther away than humans.

- Whether it's their vision,

whether it's their smelling,

whether it is their

bone structure and

their flexible spines

and their speed, every

last part of their body

is geared towards hunting.

- Add to that, a set of

super quiet-patted paws

and camouflage fur patterns.

And you have the perfect

candidate as a secret agent.

- [Cat] The name's

cat, black cat.

If anyone asks, we never met.

- [Narrator] In the 1960s,

the CIA put the

stealth skills of cats

to the test in a project

called Acoustic Kitty,

hoping to use cats

in spy missions.

They insert a microphone and

transmitter into the body of

the feline and wire an

antenna to its tail.

The goal is to bug

secret conversations.

The spy training and surgery

cost up to 20 million dollars.

A trial run is set up.

- [Cat] Agent Cat is

nearing the target.

- [Narrator] The plan,

have the cat record

a conversation between

two men sitting in a park

in Washington, DC.

- [Man] Hey, so I had

this hot dog the other day

and it was amazing.

(car rumbling)

- [Narrator] But the trial fails

when the cat is fatally

run over by a taxi.

- Clearly that program

was designed by somebody

who didn't live with a cat.

They're not gonna do

what you want them to do

just because you

want them to do it.

That's just silly.

- [Cat] I will move

when I'm good and ready.

- Oh, that's a good stretch.

- [Narrator] Meanwhile for dogs,

following orders and getting

a job done is exactly

what they'll do.

In the United States, 15,000

dogs have been trained

as detection or sniffer

dogs and are primarily used

by the military and

law enforcement.

- One of the traits

that dogs have

that we really selected

is their sense of smell.

- [Narrator] And because

of their 300 million

scent receptors, they

can easily detect

firearms, expl*sives and drugs.

The area of a dog's brain

devoted to analyzing odors

is about 40 times

larger than humans.

It's been estimated that

dogs can smell anywhere

from 1000 to 10,000

times better than people.

In fact, search and rescue

dogs can cover a search area

up to 150 acres and

can pick up a scent

as far as a quarter mile away.

- Their nasal aperture

has much more surface area

in it than ours does.

And that allows them to

differentiate many more smells

and detect much fainter smells.

- And now you get dogs

in medical contexts,

which are able to smell

out or warn people of

either epilepsy or cancer or

any number of other things.

You get service dogs for helping

people living in their home

for getting dressed,

for crossing streets,

for doing any number

of other things.

- [Narrator] Today

500,000 service dogs

are working partners to

millions of Americans.

- Dogs make such

great service animals

because they are so

inherently trainable.

- [Narrator] And

sometimes we give our dogs

some unconventional jobs.

- Mayor Max is the mayor.

He's a four-year-old

golden retriever.

- [Narrator] Like max, the

mayor of the unincorporated town

of Idyllwild, California.

Max won two thirds of the vote

and was so popular that

residents decided to keep him

in office beyond

his one-year term.

- I'm not sure how

practical that is.

It shows how we think our

dogs truly can do anything.

- [Narrator] Over the millennia,

we have shared a unique

cross-species bond

with our cats and dogs.

And as a result, we have

become a pet-loving culture.

And whatever the

future may hold,

there's no doubt that they

will continue to be by our side

every step of the way

- [Cat] I'll be there.

- [Dog] Me too.

- I think the future

of our relationship

with our pets is just going

to exaggerate the trajectory

we're already on.

- They're becoming

more established

members of the family.

The industry around

them is growing

and their prominence in

society is growing as well.

- It's been over 10,000 years.

I mean, come on at this point,

I think the road

is well established

and I think it can only

go forward from here.

- [Cat] Whatever stuck in

your hair tastes really good.

- [Dog] Bubble gum.

- [Cat] Hey, is it over?

Wow, that was fast.

Pass me ♪

I'm a dog ♪

I'm a dog ♪

I'm a dog ♪

I'm a cat ♪

You know I know ♪

Whatever's that ♪

because I'm a cat ♪

I'm a dog ♪

I'm a dog ♪