Cats Are Jerks. Discuss

Cats are jerks that's what some people say. They compiled a list of cats being jerks on a major website and every occasion can be explained in terms of natural cat behaviour on the one hand and the human's rather peculiar desire to be amused by the domestic cat on the other hand.

Name me an occasion when a cat is being jerk and I will name you the reason why the cat is not being a jerk. And the person who described the cat as being a jerk is really the jerk.

There are countless examples. To name a couple. Your cat is lying on your computer keyboard. He is in the way. He's a jerk. No he's not. He just wants to be near you. Or the keyboard may be warm because it has been used a lot. He likes the warmth. He does not know that he is on a computer keyboard. I guess that is obvious even to the biggest human jerk.

Recently, or not so long ago, there were a whole range of videos about cats being scared of cucumbers. Some people might say the cat is behaving like a jerk but I'd say the cat was simply temporarily scared of a strange object put down behind him. This is normal. The person who put the cucumber on the ground behind the cat knowing that the cat would be frightened is the jerk because he did it for his amusement at the expense of making his cat frightened.

It all depends how you look at it. A lot of people, most of them are probably non-cat owning people, turn to the domestic cat as a source of entertainment on YouTube. They're looking for cats behaving as jerks which they find entertaining. It's all a question of perception. Some people will find some aspects of the cat's behaviour as strange and as a consequence they describe the cat as being a jerk.

I see cat behavior as cause-and-effect; as natural behaviour caused by any form of stimulus or circumstance. All of it can be explained as natural behaviour quite obviously. You can't describe natural animal behaviour as bizarre because it is normal. If it is natural it must be normal and if people see normal behaviour as bizarre and jerk-like then there is something wrong with them in my opinion.

I hate to say it but it's human behavior which can be unnatural and deviant. People who behave like this are the jerks.