"Cats try to RUIN Christmas trees" discuss!

It is that time of year when websites sometimes discuss the interaction between cats and Christmas trees 😎. And this is where it goes wrong 😢. There's one website from New Zealand called Stuff which has a title as follows: "Watch: 12 times cats tried to ruin Christmas trees". This is a big website with an influence, and I don't like the title (Kiwis don't like cats!). I am being too serious, but this is a title which imports speciesism into the discussion.

Domestic cat pulls over Christmas tree. See video below.

Domestic cats don't try and ruin Christmas trees. They try and climb them because that is what domestic cats want to do. They need to entertain themselves in the sterile human environment in which they are placed and forced to live. Strong words.

@yoilseari please send tips so this won’t happen again #cat #catsoftiktok #christmas #cats #fyp #foryoupage ♬ original sound - Ilse ◡̈

So why criticise them for trying to ruin Christmas trees? They are simply climbing them and enjoying the experience. If that results in the Christmas tree falling over and smashing to bits so be it.

It is not a conscious effort by a domestic cat to ruin a Christmas tree. I am spelling out the obvious and I'm sure that I am being incredibly tiresome and boring in doing so.

However, the title that I refer to on the Internet is a misdescription and a form of speciesism.

No doubt there are many videos of domestic cats pulling over Christmas trees. There are an equal number of methods to protect Christmas tree such as putting kitchen foil all around the tree. This works pretty effectively because it looks sort of Christmassy while at the same time protecting the tree because domestic cats hate to walk on tin foil. They don't understand it and it makes a funny noise which puts them off very effectively.

My theory is that the sound of tinfoil being walked on sounds a bit like a viper or a rattlesnake. Cats don't like snakes although it must be said that they are very effective at killing snakes particularly the sand cat. This is made possible by the fact that the domestic cat's reflexes are sharper than those of the snake!

Back to Christmas trees. The video on this page I think is priceless. That is a bit of a pun because there is a financial price to pay when a cat knocks over a beautiful Christmas tree as we see in the video.