Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
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Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#2I think any animal would be startled if they started eating and a new object was covertly placed behind them... including humans. Cats aren't afraid of cucumbers, they're afraid of strange things in strange places.
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#3>“If you cause stress to an animal that's probably not a good thing,” says Jill Goldman, a certified animal behaviorist in southern California. “If you do it for laughs it makes me question your humanity.”
And I question his/hers intelligence.
People do pranks and scare other people for laughs all the time and we don't question their humanity. And suddenly pranking a cat with a cucumber makes you subhuman?
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#4I think any animal would be startled if they started eating and a new object was covertly placed behind them... including humans. Cats aren't afraid of cucumbers, they're afraid of strange things in strange places.
Well, they don't get scared by all kinds of strange things in strange places, so this theory falls apart a little there.
Cucumbers (and zuccini etc) seem to work much better, probably because they remind them of snakes and other long animals.
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#5> “If you cause stress to an animal that's probably not a good thing,” says Jill Goldman, a certified animal behaviorist in southern California. “If you do it for laughs it makes me question your humanity.” And I question his/hers intelligence. People do pranks and scare other people for laughs all the time and we don't question their humanity. And suddenly pranking a cat with a cucumber makes you subhuman?
I think it's the asymmetry of the relationship. Pranking another human is an interaction of equals. Pranking something that's (totally) dependent on you, and lacks anything resembling the same world view, is a bit more cruel. But hey, people have pets for all sorts of reasons, right?
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#6Cucumbers and cats have always been natural enemies in the wild. (Do no cats eat pickles?)
But seriously, I'm not a fan of any of this ambush-fright video trend. The gags that Jimmy Kimmel, for example, has parents play on kids to video their panicked reactions make me sick. (For example, the recent "we ate all of your Halloween candy" theme.)
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#7These owners in some of the videos will regret scaring their cats near their litterboxes, if the cat becomes afraid of the area.
(I have no rules for my indoor cats because I don't want them to become neurotic. I don't try to "train" them off of countertops, etc.)
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#8> “If you cause stress to an animal that's probably not a good thing,” says Jill Goldman, a certified animal behaviorist in southern California. “If you do it for laughs it makes me question your humanity.” And I question his/hers intelligence. People do pranks and scare other people for laughs all the time and we don't question their humanity. And suddenly pranking a cat with a cucumber makes you subhuman?
I think it's the asymmetry of the relationship. Pranking another human is an interaction of equals. Pranking something that's (totally) dependent on you, and lacks anything resembling the same world view, is a bit more cruel. But hey, people have pets for all sorts of reasons, right?
Pranking a child is no "interaction of equals".
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#9> “If you cause stress to an animal that's probably not a good thing,” says Jill Goldman, a certified animal behaviorist in southern California. “If you do it for laughs it makes me question your humanity.” And I question his/hers intelligence. People do pranks and scare other people for laughs all the time and we don't question their humanity. And suddenly pranking a cat with a cucumber makes you subhuman?
"We" don't?
Re: Stop Scaring Your Cats with Cucumbers
#10> “If you cause stress to an animal that's probably not a good thing,” says Jill Goldman, a certified animal behaviorist in southern California. “If you do it for laughs it makes me question your humanity.” And I question his/hers intelligence. People do pranks and scare other people for laughs all the time and we don't question their humanity. And suddenly pranking a cat with a cucumber makes you subhuman?
"We" don't?
Yeah, most people don't consider pranksters inhuman. Hello, outlier.