Posted on 11/20/2015 12:56:05 PM PST by sparklite2
The new viral craze is apparently scaring cats with cucumbers, because the Internet is a weird place and humans enjoy low-grade animal cruelty as long as it's adorable.
But National Geographic reports that we should all maybe not be scaring our cats with cucumbers. According to Upvoted, the first cat-scared-by-cucumber video appears to have been uploaded in May and went viral by July or so.
Countless others followed, to the point where Reddit has an entire Cucumbers Scaring Cats community. The idea behind these videos is that if you put a cucumber behind a cat, it'll freak out when it sees it.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I think it’s because something is suddenly there, and they didn’t see how it got there. Cats are very observant of their surroundings - will all senses.
I’m going to test it tomorrow. My guess is that if you put a cucumber down on the floor while the cat watches you, he won’t care. One of mine will probably try to drag it somewhere; the other will just sniff at it and yawn.
-JT
Sometimes I’m all three :)
We had a cat that loved to play with garden snakes. We’d see him in the yard patting the grass (he had big paws - 6-toes) trying to scare one up. That was fine, but he also liked to bring them inside. Not so fine. I don’t like snakes!
Scaring cats with cucumbers must scare animal behaviorist.
Hmmm.
I want to see those videos too!
The very last thing I would want to do is scare my cats.
They’re quite humorous enough with their daily antics.
Our black Maine Coon will sometimes be sitting quietly,
and the next second, he’s tearing through the house as
if his tail is on fire. He sleeps near the foot of my
bed, and he’s usually using my foot for a pillow. Or a
backrest. He’s a beautiful cat, and we can’t figure out
how he got relegated to a shelter. He’s sharp as a tack.
Somebody must have kicked that cat with his or her shoe on at one time or another.
Poor kitty.
My dad used to own a walking stick carved & painted to resemble a snake. Once, while I was watching TV, he sneaked up behind me with the stick, slowly moving it toward me. When I turned & saw the stick, I nearly did backflips. It was funny.
That’s exactly what’s happening with these cats. People are sneaking up behind them and sticking something there which the cat KNOWS wasn’t there before - it could be any object - and the unexpected simply startles them.
I tried introducing my cats to a cucumber today. I put it on the floor while they watched; they poked and sniffed a little; and then they walked away toward other, more interesting pursuits.
If it had been a new cardboard box that came in the mail, or a paper bag from today’s groceries, there would have been quite a jolly show. We are tripping over fancy cat toys, here; but all the cats want is a box, a bag, even a paperclip :-)
Cucumber? Zilch, Nada.
-JT
That is some weird mean thing to do, and yet I laughed really hard while I felt bad.
CAT VS CUCUMBER PRANK FAILS!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3haTJOcTfs
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