All language subtitles for 32245499BEA41D385898522B27D3933F_eng

Dogs were our first ever pets.

They've now shared our homes
for 30,000 years.

Not surprising, then,
we call them "Man's best friend."

But despite our close relationship,

dogs have been hiding a remarkable
extra super sense from us all this time.

Meet Tweed and her litter of five puppies.

They'll open their eyes after one week

and hear after three.

But one sense
is perfectly formed from birth.

The ability to smell.

And they can do that
100,000 times better than we can.

Until recently, we thought
it was that amazing sense of smell

that helped them find their way back
to the food and warmth provided by Mom.

But now their secret has been revealed,

and it's more extraordinary
than anyone ever imagined.

So what sensory superpower
have dogs been hiding all this time?

It turns out little Dickens here has
a thermal sensor in the tip of his nose.

He can detect warmth
like a heat-seeking missile.

To see how that works,
let's switch to a thermal imaging camera.

The warmest areas are red,

and the biggest source of heat,
his mom's tummy.

Little Dickens straying away
from his mom is no cause for alarm…

because the thermal sensor in his nose
will guide him back to safety.

In every dog's brain, there's an area
called "the somatosensory cortex"

that not only processes smell,
but also thermal radiation.

As our pup develops into an adult,

this extra super sense will help him
through his domestic life.

In the wild, a Labrador like Dickens
could use his thermal nose

to spot the heat of a prey animal,

allowing him to hunt
even if his other senses were impaired.

Even though their sense of smell
is 100,000 times better than humans,

they're really using their ability
to sense heat to find food.

It also explains that uncanny knack
for stealing a warm seat.

As this spectacular extra sense
has only previously been found

in snakes,
black fire beetles, and vampire bats,

Dickens is a member
of a pretty exclusive club.

Just when we think
we know them inside out,

dogs surprise us with something new.

So what super senses have our other pets
been keeping hidden from us?

Our next pet has an even more
impressive superpower

that means no matter where he is,
he can always find his way home.

In Utah, Zac Robinson has found
a fun way to spend time with his pet

while at the same time harnessing
its unique navigation abilities.

I love the desert.

It can look so boring,
and desolate, and empty,

and then you just come around a corner,
and there is a 200-foot cliff drop.

I could spend the rest of my life
just exploring out here.

But Zac's not venturing
into these arid uplands alone.

For the past eight years,
he's had a rather unusual wingman.

His pet cat, Kenny.

I was going on climbing trips.

Other folks would bring their dogs
for the weekend,

and I just really felt bad
leaving Kenny at home.

Then I thought, "Man, this would be great
if I could just bring him along

and spend that extra time with him,"

and… and we started doing some trips.

Since then, Zac and Kenny
have hiked over 200 miles together,

leading to a remarkable synchronicity.

Kenny's tail is usually up.

He's walking around, he's got his tail
crooked up like a question mark.

That's when I know
that he has got good spirits.

We're taking our time,
he'll stop and sniff a plant.

And once it gets hot out,
we're seeking shade everywhere.

After their first few hikes
together, something remarkable happened.

Yeah, go, go, go, go, go!

Kenny began to lead the way.

He'll get 30, 50 feet away from me.

But he'll stop and meow until I catch up.

Then he'll just check in with me,
give me a quick little bump,

and then move on his way.

Go on.

There's definitely a partnership
as we're walking around

and… and checking things out.

I really feel like that we're both
kind of doing this together.

Thanks to Kenny,
these two should never get lost.

It's believed that cats navigate
using an in-built GPS system

called "magnetoreception,"

an ability to sense the planet's
magnetic forces using their bodies.

And out here in the desert,
it's on the return leg

that Kenny's navigation skills
really kick in.

You can see those instincts
kinda come into play.

He's got a really good sense of direction.

He knows which direction is home,

and he will pull straight back
towards the car, back towards camp.

Go, go, go, go, go.

It seems that once a pet
has locked into a location,

it can always find its way back there

simply by following
the magnetic forces leading to it.

Last half mile or so,
he starts moving a little faster.

And he knows
that we're getting close to camp.

I can light a fire.

He'll usually crawl up into the chair,
and just watch me cook dinner.

And we can sit together in the love seat
and just kinda watch the stars go by

as the fire dies.

I think, with these trips,
we've really gotten a lot closer.

Ready to go to sleep?

I grew up with dogs, and I've just
become a cat person for life, it seems.

So it turns out our cats
are masters at finding their way

back to base.

But our next set of pets
have hidden abilities

that help them keep track of us
in their new domestic lives.

Our favorite pets' super senses evolved
to help them survive in the wild.

But their pampered lives in our homes
couldn't be more different.

Left home alone,

do our pets enjoy the peace
and quiet of an empty house?

The truth is, our houses
might not seem quite as silent to them

as they do to us.

That's because most of our pets
share an ability

to hear ultrasonic noise
way above our hearing range,

which only goes up to 20 kilohertz.

Dogs hear frequencies
over twice as high as us.

And cats, four times higher still.

So, electronic devices
like LED lights and quartz timers,

designed to sound silent to us

still emit high frequency noises
that can be heard by our pets.

But they don't just hear
higher pitches than us,

they hear over much greater distances too.

Claus' ears are so sensitive,

it's thought he may be able to identify
sounds a mind-boggling distance

of two miles away.

So it means, in theory,
he'll always be the first to know

his owner's on their way home.

It helps that his ears
can rotate 270 degrees,

channeling even the tiniest sounds
directly into his eardrums.

Strike's ears prick up later,

hearing us when we're around
a quarter of a mile away.

His hearing is four times
more sensitive than ours.

So it almost appears he has a sixth sense
for when we're coming home.

In the garden, Titus hates to be left out.

He predicts an imminent arrival
through low frequency sounds

rumbling through the ground.

It's his defense against predators,

but also means
he gets to be first for once.

Orlando can see and hear us now,

but in typical cat fashion,
he's not letting on.

His ears allow him to pinpoint tiny noises

two octaves higher than our other pets

and react ten times faster.

If he could be bothered. That's what
makes him such a brilliant night hunter.

But of all the pets, only Strike
can use his hearing as a superpower.

Within seconds, he tunes in
to the sound of our heartbeat,

using it to gauge how stressed we are,

and changing his behavior in response.

And incredibly, his own heartbeat
then falls into sync with ours.

Just one of the reasons we feel our dogs
are so incredibly in tune with us.

But it's not just our furry friends
that can surprise us.

Even our aquatic pets
have hidden super senses.

And it turns out,
our fish are surprisingly sporty.

This is the Guangdong province
of Southern China…

…where some goldfish
with the incredible ability to play soccer

have become an internet sensation,

clocking up four million hits

after their owner began broadcasting
their matches on social media.

The man behind these
unlikely global superstars is Mr. Yang.

He discovered their talents by chance

when trying to combine
his lifelong passions,

goldfish and soccer.

The fish tank I designed

happened to be the proportion
of a football field.

I wondered if I could train
the goldfish to play.

I put a little ball in,

and soon they became interested
in playing with it.

Gradually they got used to the game

and could even score.

I filmed a lot of their matches,

and their goal scoring moments
are spectacular.

I put the videos on TikTok,

and they became an instant hit.

People were so surprised
by these goldfish.

This unexpected talent
for soccer

is thanks to a system of tactile sense
organs called the lateral line.

Unique to fish, this ridge
of sensory cells running down each side

help them spot predators
by perceiving movement

and pressure changes in the water.

Which also comes in handy
to sense exactly where the ball

and other players are on the pitch.

Each individual cell of the lateral line
contains a tiny hair

called a stereocilia,

fish's version of a whisker,

which moves in a jelly-like
substance called cupula.

Mr. Yang's goldfish are Ranchu,

an ancient breed
originating from China's emperors.

A year into their training,
they're more competitive than ever.

Little Red
scores fantastic goals.

He is strong and gifted.

He is my favorite player.

His fans compare him to Cristiano Ronaldo.

The way he keeps scoring goals is amazing.

He is a very talented football player.

A sense of touch gives our pets
a finely tuned appreciation

of the world around them.

But how does their eyesight
compare to ours?

What can they see that we can't?

To find out, we've brought some pets
to our own special art gallery.

Every one of them
has highly specialized eyesight,

evolved for survival
in their natural habitats.

So it turns out, we humans
are only seeing part of the picture.

Birds and reptiles are tetrachromatic.

They have four cone cells in their eyes.

Most humans only have three.

So where we see a million colors…

they can see all the way
into the brilliant fluorescence

of the ultraviolet spectrum.

This heightened appreciation
of color helps them navigate

through dense forest
and hunt tiny insects.

But it's also their way
of attracting a mate.

Ultraviolet feather markings,
invisible to our eyes,

come in very handy
for getting the opposite sex in a flap.

It's a different story
for our mammalian pets.

Strike is dichromatic.

His eyes have better night vision,

but with just two types of cone cells…

…bright colors barely register.

Instead, along with his mates,
Strike sees the world as a series

of muted blues and yellows.

That's why our furry friends
notice patterns rather than colors.

But dogs and cats'
visual superpowers lie elsewhere.

As apex hunters,
their eyesight has evolved

to spot the tiniest movements
of their prey.

Especially in dim light.

Sorry, guys, it's only Leo.

Apart from dogs and cats,

most pets' eyes are positioned
on the sides of their heads,

giving them a far greater field
of vision than us.

But one outperforms them all.

Chameleon Michelangelo can see
a full 360 degrees

and can also rotate
and focus each eye independently.

Vision that's monocular,

meaning each eye
sends a separate image to his brain.

So Michelangelo really does have eyes
in the back of his head.

There's just no beating that,
is there, Strike?

We always knew our pets
were keeping an eye on us,

but some have an even more amazing tool
for sensing the world around them.

For many of our pets,
their impressive whiskers

are one of their most
recognizable features.

Blue dumbo Stanley
is friendly, intelligent,

and one the cleanest pets you can own.

Like all rats, he'll spend
around a third of his waking hours

proudly grooming his whiskers.

And as the owner of around 70,
each up to five centimeters long,

we're going to let him show us exactly
what these super sensory hairs can do.

A fun maze,
filled with textures and obstacles,

will be an action-packed way to give
Stanley the whisker workout of a lifetime.

Fanning out from his cheeks,
eyebrows, and chin,

they're his first point of contact
with everything he encounters.

Even if it were pitch dark,

his whiskers would help Stanley build
a detailed picture of his surroundings

and decide where he can squeeze…

and where he can't.

The closest human equivalent for
the constant data provided by whiskers

is the mental map
we compose in our mind's eye

when running our sensitive fingertips
across the surfaces in a darkened room.

But now, the study of rats like Stanley
is spearheading the intersection

of biology and engineering
in medical science.

To explain, let's go back to the start,

and slow down the cameras even more.

It's only in this much detail
we can appreciate

just how much Stanley
is actively moving his whiskers.

Sweeping them forward in a whisking motion

to interact with the objects around him.

It's such a sophisticated system

that if macro-robotics companies
could successfully replicate it,

it could lead to a revolution
in keyhole surgery.

Which means that rats like Stanley here

may soon be helping to save human lives.

So, whiskers are truly wonderful…

…but our next pet's secret abilities
can elevate them to new heights.

In rural Texas, Nick Phomkasornsri
shares a six-acre ranch

with husband Steve,
five-year-old son Wyatt,

and a growing menagerie of rescue pets,

all of whom benefit
from his vision for their new lives

of almost total freedom.

Especially his feathered friends.

This is Torchy, and this is Klono.

Torchy is a harlequin macaw,
and Klono is a military macaw.

Um, Torchy's about ten years old,
Klono's only about three.

So every day I take 'em out, I let 'em go.

They love to fly.

Before he came to live
on the ranch, Klono, like most pet birds,

had never been allowed
to fully stretch his wings.

It only took four months.

He went from flying indoors,
just maybe a little bit fluttering

from perch to perch,

to now, he's, like,
diving around trees and everything.

The key
to Klono's newfound aerobatic skill

is his natural impulse to flock closely

alongside experienced flyer Torchy.

Like fish swimming in shoals,

flocking is the super sense that enables
birds to fly in close proximity

without colliding,
even at incredible speeds.

It's been really cool
to see him develop those flight skills.

Just twisting and turning,
and diving under trees.

He… he loves it. He loves it.

Klono's flocking skills

are thanks to something
called proprioception,

his ability to mentally gauge
his body position relative to other birds.

Oh, he came up behind me.
I didn't see him.

Whilst we humans
also use proprioception

to gauge the position
of our bodies in space,

birds take it to another level entirely.

I could watch him all day.

Airflow across Klono's wing tips

stimulates individual feathers,
offering constant feedback

about his body position.

He can perceive the tiniest of changes
in direction made by Torchy,

and fly just millimeters
from his best friend.

Torchy, Klono!

Thanks to Nick,
rescue parrot Klono gets to make the most

of his flocking superpower.

Come here, Klono.

Come on, Klono.

Klono, come here.

These birds have a phenomenal life.

I just feel so happy for them,

to be able to be doing what most captive
parrots never ever get a chance to do.

Klono's powers give him
a unique bird's eye view of the world.

But all our other pets share
an extraordinary extra super sense,

which means they experience life
in a way we can only imagine.

This all comes down
to a cluster of specialist cells

buried deep in most pets' throats
called the Jacobson's organ.

Their job is to detect
airborne chemical particles.

Allowing all pets, except birds, that is…

…to pick up invisible information from
every other living being they meet…

including us.

This incredible extra sense means
they have the potential to save lives.

Barna.

Meet 22-year-old Emily Cook

and her very special dog Barna.

Barna is like a guardian angel
because he's constantly watching over me.

He's not just my pet,
I know that I'm safe while he's there.

Even in a situation
like this where you've got the wind,

the sea, the beach,
all these distractions,

I just know that he can come back to me
and let me know when I'm gonna be unwell.

Until Barna came along,

Emily thought her chances
of an independent life were long gone,

since being struck down
by a mystery illness aged just 12.

I was a massively active young girl.

I was a competitive swimmer,
I was doing really well at school.

Completely out of the blue,
I was on the landing of my home,

and I went unconscious.

Then it just kept happening.

After years of tests,
Emily's doctors attributed

the frequent blackouts

to a rare neurological condition.

But predicting them
proved medically impossible.

I have no warning signs myself.

I have no awareness
that it's going to happen.

It's just a constant state of anxiety.

Thinking, "Oh, what happens
if I go unconscious here?"

"I'm crossing a road,
what happens then if it happens?"

That's terrifying.

But salvation
was just around the corner,

in the form of Hungarian vizsla Barna.

We got Barna
as an eight week old puppy.

At that age, they're just loopy,

wrinkly, orange balls of fur.

And I just loved spending time with him.

He was a focus away from my health.

The pair
quickly became inseparable,

and Barna was witness to every attack.

Whenever I was unconscious,
he wanted to be by my side.

He'd often just lie there
kind of staring at me,

I think waiting for me to wake back up.

But Barna was about to prove
he could provide more than just comfort.

All of a sudden, he just came sprinting
into the kitchen

and sat down in front of me.

He then did just a really,
really intense stare.

And then a single bark.

And up until that point as a puppy,
he never really barked at all.

And then five minutes later,
I was unconscious.

Then it kept on happening every time.

Incredibly, Barna appeared
to have a natural ability

to do the one thing
Emily's doctors could not.

Predict her blackouts.

And it's all thanks
to his Jacobson's organ,

which allows him to monitor
microscopic chemical changes

in her breath and sweat,
indicating an imminent attack.

Other dogs have been trained to predict
epileptic and diabetic seizures.

Barna instinctively took it
upon himself to alert Emily,

a skill he refined
with 18 months training,

qualifying him as a registered
assistance dog,

the first of his breed.

When I put Barna's uniform on,
you kinda feel

a bit invincible at that point.

There's no words
for how amazing his abilities are.

He's given me my life back,

and I don't think many pets,
you can say, can do that.

I always get emotional
when I talk about him, what he does… Um.

With Barna constantly
by her side, Emily has rejoined the world,

safe in the knowledge that Barna
will alert her before a blackout.

That five minutes has changed everything,

that, all of a sudden, I have the ability

to act before I'm gonna come unwell.

I can let people around me
know what's going to happen,

so no one gets upset,
no one starts panicking.

With no portable equipment

that can predict seizures
currently available…

- Hi, can I get a latte, please?
- Yeah, for sure.

…those without
an incredible pet like Barna

would face a lifetime trapped at home.

My life's had a complete turnaround
since Barna came into it.

I have the independence
to go out on my own,

to go to places and locations like this

that I never could
have dreamed of going before.

To thank him for her freedom,
Emily's determined

to pay Barna back any way she can.

For Barna, coming to the beach,
it's his favorite thing in the world.

That moment when you can
just take off his working jacket

and let him run free along a beach,

just completely enjoying himself,
that brings so much joy to me as well.

Barna.

Looking back at where I've come from,

it's just amazing the fact
that the difference in my life,

I have hope,

I can look to the future,
and that's something that just,

I didn't think was possible before.

The future is bright with Barna.

I just… I love him for it.

We've seen how our pets
live in a heightened world

with super senses
honed for survival in the wild.

And although pets like Strike,

Orlando…

…and Stanley

live in the safety of our homes,

understanding the potential
of their super senses

not only helps us appreciate them more,

but adapt our lives
to make them happier, healthier…

…and closer to us than ever before.

Next time, we reveal
the super athletes living in our homes.

Ready?

Usually, he's just kinda flying
at, like, a leisurely speed,

but when he wants to go, it's impressive.

And discover how
our pets' wild past has given them

these incredible abilities.

It's a little bit of excitement
and danger, all in the same time.

And I know a lot of people
that have injured themselves.