Naming your pets

Under Pets, add each pet with its name and whether it's a dog or a cat, then a few photos of it — five or so, from different sides, where it's clearly visible and alone. When the camera sees a dog or cat, it compares it with your pets' photos, and if it is clearly one of them the alert and the event list use its name: "Rex barking", "Person and Luna".

When it isn't sure, it says "Dog" or "Cat", as it would without any pets added. That is deliberate: a wrong name is worse than no name. Pets that look quite different — a black cat and a ginger one — are told apart well. Two that look alike, such as littermates, often aren't, and will usually just be "Cat".

Is this Rex? The best photos are the camera's own, since that is how it will see the pet again. When an event saw a dog or cat, open it on your iPhone and tap "Is this Rex?" (or "Which dog is this?"), or answer under Recent sightings in Pets on the Mac. Say which pet it is and that picture joins its photos; say "Someone new" to add a pet from it; say "Not one of ours" and animals like it — the neighbour's cat — won't be given a pet's name. You can start this way, with no photos added at all.

No cat at all? When the camera calls a shadow, a cushion or a coat a cat, say "There's no cat here" (or "No Cat Here" on the Mac). The camera remembers that picture, and from then on something that looks very like it isn't counted as a cat: it won't label an event, set off "only cats", or be asked about again. A real cat, even one sitting in the same spot, still is. Changing the answer takes it back.

Uploaded photos. Choose ones where the pet is clearly visible and alone, from the angles the camera sees it. A photo with two dogs is refused: it can't tell which one you mean.

Privacy. The photos stay on this Mac; only a small picture of the pet and its fingerprint for matching are kept. Names and pictures only leave the Mac encrypted for your own devices — the relay can't read them.