For more than a year now, viral videos have appeared on the network in spring, in which cats run away in fear or jump in the air at the sight of a cucumber. Why cucumbers can scare some cats is an interesting question, but one expert is not a mystery.
The sight of a cat jumping up and down in fright at the sight of a cucumber might make some people laugh hard, but it’s not really funny, and least of all for a cat. Why cats are afraid of cucumbers and is it worth it to have fun, let’s take a look at it in order.
Why are cats afraid of cucumbers?
βCats are genetically programmed to avoid snakes,β writes animal behaviorist and author of Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning Animal Language. Cucumbers are snake-like enough to cause instinctive fear and panic in a cat. If a cat sees something sliding on the ground, it often jumps into the air, which prevents snake bites.
And not only cucumbers can cause such hysteria in cats, but long-fruited cucumbers with curved ends are more like snakes than corn on the cob or eggplant, so they cause a greater reaction.
Is this entertainment so harmless?
No need to prank your cat with cucumber-shaped objects – this can have long-term consequences for her mental health. Trying to escape, the cat can break something, injure others or itself. It can also lead to long-term stress in the cat.Β
Studies on the effects of fright in rodents and humans have shown that repeated “surprises” can cause anxiety and long-term stress. This can also be applied to cats and many other mammals. Sustained anxiety and stress can worsen your pet’s overall well-being and weaken their immune system, making them more susceptible to disease. Trying to scare a cat like that is not only wrong, but rather cruel.Β
Cats and Cucumbers: Animal Engineer’s Opinion
We learned about how professionals relate to such fun from our author, zoo engineer Anastasia Kalinina.
– In these commercials, cucumbers are quietly placed on unfortunate cats when they are eating peacefully. A place for a cat to eat is always the most comfortable and safe. It seems to me that animals are frightened simply out of surprise. It is possible that the cats were teased on purpose in order to shoot a funny video.
A long curved object can suddenly frighten a cat, as it resembles a snake. Cats and snakes are enemies, thanks to feline caution, snakes rarely bite cats, unlike dogs. After all, a cat first carefully examines any unfamiliar object with the help of vision, and then gently touches it with its paw. Often, thanks to this, cats kill poisonous snakes, saving family members. And dogs need to sniff an unfamiliar object.
We have two cats and a cat lived all summer in a greenhouse with tomatoes and cucumbers, and the cucumbers were long βGreat Serpentβ and βShanghai Well Doneβ, no one was afraid of anything. They also slept in the garden with cucumbers. At home, they could sit in a bowl of cucumbers or between zucchini to sleep on the kitchen table. By the way, the response to these viral videos was βsevere Russian catsβ, which you canβt scare with a cucumber. They will also bite or eat a piece of it.
It seems to me that only citrus fruits really scare cats because of the release of essential oils during peeling an orange, for example.
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