This is truly bizarre. I don’t think I’ll try it with Rerun, though, even though I happened to buy a cucumber the other day. She gets enough abuse.
4 thoughts on “Cats And Cukes”
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This is truly bizarre. I don’t think I’ll try it with Rerun, though, even though I happened to buy a cucumber the other day. She gets enough abuse.
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I’ve seen startle behavior very similar to this before in cats. I grew up on a farm and cats startled by a snake would act the same way. I won’t make a strong claim to understand what goes on in a cat’s head, but they’re probably processing the first glance as a snake before they figure out what it really is.
Any creature gets startled by something appearing behind it that it didn’t expect. And I suspect that cats are hard-wired to be startled by anything that resembles a snake — primates have the same reaction instinctually, and no reason to think that mammals in general shouldn’t share a similar fear of snakes.
I tested this on my cat the other day (with a zucchini, not a cucumber, but that’s similar). There was no effect.
I asked on Twitter if anyone had tried a zucchini, with no response. But maybe it really has to be a cucumber. You didn’t properly replicate. 🙂