Infographics on 3 cat companion behaviours that need correction plus training fear out of your cat

 

I am thankful for Jackson's thoughts on this. He has his own language for describing cat behavior. I am not sure that the Infographic needs to be expanded on but I will add some words. 

Fridging and cocooning?

Two of these behavioural traits: liking to be on top of the fridge or underneath furniture which Jackson exceeded describes as fridging and cocooning respectively, are due to anxiety even fear. They are not that uncommon. 

Domestic cats have to be quite wary in some homes where the environment is not really conducive to a cat expressing their natural behaviours.

So, if a cat caregiver sees this kind of behaviour, they might accurately presume that their cat is anxious. Other signs might be over grooming themselves even to the point where they barber the hair from the inside of their legs were on their belly, both easily accessible places.

Treatment

Jackson Galaxy, American's favourite cat behaviourist, suggests that in order to allow a domestic cat to gain their confidence and become less timid, the cat caregiver should provide a cocoon for them which is a transformational place. 

This is a hiding place which is more open to the possibility of them interacting with what is going on around them. It is an intermediate location where a cat can feel secure and when it suits them integrate into general household life.

Train to reduce fear in a cat

Here is another infographic on a similar topic.

Infographic by MikeB at PoC.

Pandemic lockdowns exposed the less-than-optimal human-to-cat relationship

NEWS AND OPINION: I'm on my high horse again but I think that this is a very relevant topic. But first things first. The Kingston Humane Society has a nice photograph of a cat in one of their cages and what I like about it is the customised tent in one corner of the cage where the cat can hide. 

It's sad and nice at the same time. It's sad because cats in shelters need to hide because they are frightened but it is nice because the shelter has provided cats with a means to hide. A sort of home-from-home environment.

Kingston Humane Society cat in a cage with a tent to hide in. Image: the society.

The fact that cats need to hide indicates that their true character is probably not going to be shown at a shelter because of anxiety induced by the shelter environment. This affects adoptions.

That's the first point out of the way. The second point is this: like other cat and animal shelters, this one has too many animals in their care. Their capacity is 144 and they currently care for 315 which is more than twice their capacity.

The director of the Kingston Humane Society, Gord Hunter, puts this down to the after-effects of the Covid pandemic and those long lockdowns during which some people impulsively adopted a companion animal.

And there is the problem: people adopted these abandoned companion animals on a known temporary basis. They must have known that the lockdowns were going to end within a defined time. They must've realised that at the end of those lockdowns they would have to go back to their normal work routine, and they should have asked themselves whether they would retain their cat or dog companion when that happened.

If they didn't do that and many didn't, they were not committed to being the caregiver of a companion animal for the life of the animal. And that is the only way to adopt a cat or dog. If a person can't make that commitment, they should not adopt.

There might be some culpability with animal shelters in this regard by adopting out cats and dogs to people during the pandemic perhaps realising that this was a temporary state of affairs.

For me, it's a question of raising standards of cat caregiving. I know it's boring to discuss this, but the flood of unwanted animals adopted inwards to shelters such as the one in Kingston indicates a less than optimal human-to-cat relationship and standard of care.

This state of affairs is one reason why there are feral cats which are a perceived problem to many people. There needs to be some way of raising standards in the interest of human society and animal welfare. Education is the best answer and regulations are a secondary solution.

Source: Global News.

Frightened kitten poops over girl in car (picture)

This is a bit sad but amusing at the same time. Well, it might be amusing if you are not the girl 🙃. It looks to me as if the family had just adopted this kitten from a rescue center and the kitten was scared as he/she was held by the girl as they drove home. Pooping inappropriately is a sign of stress as it is scent marking to reassure the kitten. It is instinctive. The kitten was removed from her known temporary territory and placed in a strange place. She was out of sorts and needed to reassure herself. There was nothing malicious or hostile in the behavior. The cause is the opposite really; nervousness. I am sure that she settled down quickly and is now a contented adult in her nice home.

Frightened kitten poops over girl in car (picture). Pic in the public domain.

Harmless objects might NOT seem harmless to a domestic cat

There is a popular video on YouTube and on the website Rumble with the title "Cat remarkably startled by harmless object."

But if you know a little bit about domestic cats, you have to come to the conclusion that the title is plain wrong. The person who wrote the title doesn't know domestic cat behaviour. This is one of those classic cucumber-and-cat videos. It's quite a good example although a bit dingy because the lighting is so bad.

 Harmless objects might NOT seem harmless to a domestic cat. Screenshot.

And once again the person who made the video had to scare their cat to make it which I don't like. But putting that moral issue to one side for a second, a cucumber placed behind a cat which the cat then turns and sees does not seem harmless to that cat. The cat does not know what the hell it is! It is a new, unknown object and it might be a threat. In order to play safe they jump out of the way. It's common sense. Note: the cucumber looks as if it could be an animal to a cat. It is a plausible analysis.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

People do this all the time. Many people are fearful of so many things and they avoid them. The Covid pandemic is a good example. People have been avoiding each other for 16 months. Even when they've been double vaccinated, they still go around wearing a mask in the open air or in their car. Animals and humans are alike in this respect; in general fearful of the unknown.

We should not, therefore, be surprised when a cat behaves like this. But people are surprised and amused at the same time period and we should not be amused either. This is neither surprising nor amusing behaviour. It is normal behaviour and an abuse of the domestic cat. But I'm becoming far too serious no doubt for the vast majority of people.

CLICK FOR SOME PAGES ON FUNNY CAT VIDEOS

But people should be aware that all these funny cat videos are at a price. And the price is the emotional welfare of the cats in the videos. A study found that a significant percentage of these cats are stressed and anxious because the person who made the video put their cats through a stressful situation in order to create something funny. And it is funny (strange) why people find frightened cats and cats put into difficult situations as amusing.

I would like to see a slightly higher standard of animal welfare and an attitude which reflects that if that is at all possible, please.

Why are cats scared of cucumbers?

This question has been answered a million times so no one is going to read this but I'll try and answer it differently. I think it is obvious why domestic cats are scared of cucumbers. It is not that they are scared of cucumbers per se. Is because they are suddenly confronted with something that they do not understand and have not seen before. This causes an immediate surge of anxiety and defensive action so they jump up into the air and run off.

Cat and cucumber. Screenshot from one of those not so funny cat videos.

Think of the human analogy. You are intensely doing something and somebody creeps up behind you and makes a loud noise. Something suddenly has happened which you don't understand and which came out of the blue. That is very similar to what happens when you put a cucumber behind a cat and the cat turns around and sees it.

If you understand the reasoning as to why people are frightened under those circumstances you will understand the reason why cats are too.

It's just something uncertain which is suddenly sprung upon them. Any animal would respond with anxiety under those circumstances. The cat's reaction looks extreme because they are fantastic jumpers. They have fast-twitch muscles and great levers in their legs so if they jump backwards and upwards, they jump a long way. This gives the impression that they are terrified but perhaps the better description is that they are immediately anxious.

They probably come back to the object later and sniff it to understand that it is not hostile. There is the added effect that the cucumber could be a strange, hostile creature such as a snake. Cats understand that snakes are dangerous which is why they adopted the hiss. They copied it over eons to try and frighten away predators.

Questionable morality of these videos

The unfortunate aspect of these many videos of cats being scared by cucumbers is that the people making them are scaring their cat deliberately to get some hits on YouTube. They are doing it for advertising money. So, they are scaring their cat to make money. You've got to ask yourself whether that is morally acceptable behaviour.

A study found that a good 30% or more of cats in funny cat videos are anxious. That is the price of making a funny cat video. It relies on the cat being anxious. I would doubt that anybody thinks about this because they are too absorbed with the funny aspect of the video. I think, though, that we need to ask questions.

Perhaps YouTube should start asking questions of themselves and as to whether allowing them is acceptable. But I'm asking the impossible because the YouTube guys just don't see it like that. For donkeys years they have accepted unacceptable videos and only recently have they become more aware of the need to satisfy their advertisers after pressure. They hate censorship of any kind as do Google and Facebook as it damages business.

My parents' cat hates me. Any advice?

A visitor to the website stated that their parents' cat, Luna, has been raised in the family since she was a kitten and is now eight years old. Luna loves the person's mother, is ambivalent about the father but positively hates the person asking the question i.e. the child of the parents who we've not named.

This is not the cat in question. Barney was labelled inherently aggressive when he was not. Photo in public domain with words added.

The cat hisses and scratches at this person who thinks Luna hates her. But I think this is a bad attitude because domestic cats don't hate certain people for no reason. There would have to be a genuine and identifiable reason. Rather than 'hate' it is far more likely to be 'fear'. Luna is fearful of this person and become defensively aggressive. 

I think there are two possible reasons. The first one is that Luna is perhaps not that well socialised because judging by the description of Luna she is not entirely friendly because she doesn't care about "my dad" but she's not that bad with "my mum" and she hisses and scratches the child who appears to be an adult child by the way. So, Luna is not great within the family anyway. 

Secondly, cats can get very used to one or two people and it is possible that the person asking the question is not always at home and therefore the cat is not too familiar with that person and treats them somewhat as a stranger and is therefore fractious with them and slightly defensive which results in scratching and hissing.

To expand on that idea: sometimes cats do form an attachment to a person and they have difficulty interacting with or bonding with anybody else. That may be a factor in this instance. The person mentioned that Luna was raised since she was a kitten in the same home. Luna may be attached to the person who was most involved in that process. That particular person might not be around anymore leaving Luna in effect in an alien home which would be stressful leading to defensive aggression and the odd swipe in his as described.

The point though is that all domestic cats who are defensively aggressive can be eased into a state which is much calmer through allowing the cat to become familiarised with you. I'm suggesting that you can socialise yourself to this cat very gradually and the best way to achieve that is to play with the cat gently and for quite a long time and to do this regularly and routinely. Gradually you will find Luna becoming less nervous and less defensive. Play is the best way to socialise a cat to a person if they are at the other end of the cat tease.

I think this is a lot to do with socialisation as much as it is to do with chemistry between a particular cat i.e. Luna and a particular person, the father. I would work on socialisation through patient play until the cat becomes entirely familiar with the person asking the question and for advice. That individual needs to be socialised to Luna in the fullest extent and I feel that would resolve the matter. This is of course presuming that all the boxes have been ticked regarding mental and physical health.

Finally, the home environment may not be to the cat's liking. It should be calm and reassuring. Perhaps something is a barrier to creating that state of affairs.

Cat owners should stop putting cucumbers behind their cats which scares them

Internet surfers should know by now that there are many videos on the Internet of cats been terrified and jumping out of their skin when they turn around and find a cucumber on the floor beside them. Their owners do this to make an interesting video. The videos have gone viral it is said and a lot of people find these videos amusing. 

I've not yet seen it said that there is a morality issue here. It is known that a healthy percentage of cats in funny cat videos are stressed (34%) because of the production of the video. In other words, people are stressing their cats in order to make a funny video.

Screenshot from one video.

The same applies to these viral cucumber cat videos. People are relying on their cat to become very frightened in order to make an interesting video. Is that morally, correct? I do not want to sound high-handed and preaching but clearly it is immoral. Cat owners have a responsibility to create an environment in which their cat companion is content. Everything that cat guardians do should be designed to meet that objective. Putting a cucumber behind a cat to frighten them achieves the exact opposite.

There are many examples of Internet videos which rely on the same principle, namely to frighten or abuse the cat in some way in order to create an interesting video. It simply has to stop. Of course, it won't and I am pissing in the wind. I fully realise that. The competition to create interesting cat videos is immense because there is quite a lot of money to be made through Google advertising on YouTube videos. And some of the most successful videos feature domestic cats as we all know.

We should also know that the reason why domestic cats jump out of their skin when they see a cucumber is not because they are frightened of cucumbers per se but because the owner put the cucumber behind them and therefore when they turn around, they see a strange object which wasn't there previously. 

Instinctively they defend themselves by jumping out of the way because they aren't sure whether this strange object is hostile and perhaps a predator. Cucumbers look somewhat like snakes which are dangerous to cats unless you are a sand cat. Sand cats attack and eat snakes even venomous ones!

Please, don't jump on the bandwagon and try and frighten your cat to make a funny cat video. It is not a good idea. Don't rely on your cat's anxiety and fear in order to benefit financially. It is inherently immoral and bad cat caretaking.

Why Are Cats...?

 If you search in Google for “why are cats" every result on page one completes the sentence like this:

"Why are cats frightened of cucumbers...!?

I find that surprising in many ways, but unsurprising in one way.  This is because there are a lot of videos on the Internet of cats being terrified at the sight of a cucumber.  There's been a lot of debate about why cats are terrified of cucumbers.

The answer must be the logical one and the straightforward one which is that the cucumber is a foreign and strange looking object to the domestic cat and when it is placed on the floor behind a domestic cat without the cat's knowledge then the cat will be frightened when he suddenly sees it.

This is because in that instant the cat does not know whether the object is alive or dead, inanimate or living, and therefore the cat's immediate reaction is defensive and to get out of the way as quickly as possible.

That is it and it's rather bizarre in some ways that a very general part-question such as “why are cats..."  is completed with a question about cucumbers!  There are so many other ways to complete this sentence and all the other ways will be far more profound and important than the ones provided by Google in their search results.  It's a reflection on how people use the Internet and what interests people about cats.