Why are cats helpless before yarn, string, tinsel, and electrical wires?
We need to understand their natural habitat to unravel this mystery.
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Cats have a vision system that is keyed to motion. Nothing is better designed to catch a kitty’s eye that something that twists and turns and offers motion all along its length. Making a string shiny simply multiplies the interest embedded along its length.
Then, there’s snakes. Most of us are fortunate enough to not have snakes appear in our dwelling, and so our cat’s interest remains inexplicable. But for cats in the wild, this would have been a constant worry; well worth being alert to. Strongly Alpha cats, those with an Oriental influence, and thus, more likely to encounter snakes in their more tropical climates; these are cats who can’t leave certain long and twisty shapes alone.
That’s because they are driven by their instincts to either kill or discourage snakes from hunting in their territory. Snakes would eat up the available prey. Snakes would endanger the cat who hunts such prey.
So if we have a cat who won’t get out from behind the stereo or computer equipment, this is a cat who is begging to have a snake substitute made available to them.
Of course, if our cat is happy with a length of yarn, especially with a toddler attached, more power to them. But some cats just adore the chance to wrestle with rubber reptiles of whatever genus, and we should indulge them.
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There’s more ways to care for our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on CAT CARE.
Just make sure that they don’t swallow any strings-like stuff!
Good point. I ran out of room, but soon I’ll do a post on that, too!
We have a number of pet snakes which provide hours of “cat television” for our youngest as they crawl back and forth in their cages. The others aren’t that interested, but she loves to watch them. And yes, she’s the one who goes nuts for strings or for pendants on thick, shiny chains. We have to be careful that she doesn’t get into the snake cages or swallow any jewelry. She got into a box of toy rubber snakes I had, and she bit the heads off of most of them. Instinct is amazing.
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That’s a good idea. I have a semi-feral kitten who regularly kills a cat collar that was lying around and she’s so likely to swallow little things that I’ve taken to pre-mauling her toy mice, pulling their little glued-on ears off so she won’t be able to. I wonder what she’d do with a rubber snake….
I found a great string substitute for my younger cat, Louie. It’s called “mouse on a wire” and it’s a long wire with a fuzzy ball at the end. When I bought it, I thought the wire would be semi-rigid, like a cat-dancer, but it is very flexible, like a metal cord, and very long. He and I play with it endlessly, but when I get tired, I can leave it on the floor and he still plays with it, safely. It’s his favorite (alternating with the laser toy).
I lived with a cat for many, many years who thoroughly enjoyed catching garter snakes (and she had a thing for lizard tails too). She wasn’t usually a killer; catching – and presenting – was enough. No poisonous snakes in my area, so no worries in that regard.
A cat-vetted choice for toy snakes: those wooden articulated ones. Sometimes they can be found unpainted at craft stores if that is a concern.
Unfortunately this
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/cat-survives-snake-necklace/story-e6frf7l6-1111115094806
Is all to real where I come from.
Mostly, cats chase the wriggling snake get bitten and die. They are immune to the venom of some spiders. Friends once mentioned that the worst wake up call they ever had was a funnel-web being dropped on their bed by their cat… they said that what saved them was that it was exhausted and only had four legs left. But it was still pretty horrific…
A lot of my friends sew and some of those with cats have horror stories. Always keep a cat away from thread! It can wind around their internal organs.
Our solution? A helpful friend in the marines gave me some parachute cord.