Missy is a scairdy cat. She runs and hides at the least little thing, and is scared of pretty much everything. Her latest fear is a little odd, though. She seems to be scared of the kitchen/dining room floor.
Most of the house is carpeted, but the kitchen/dining room has hardwood flooring. It never seemed to bother her before, but lately when she comes in she gets a very nervous look on her face and runs from rug to rug so she doesn’t have to spend time standing on the hard floor.
It’s a bit of a problem for her, since we feed the cats in the kitchen. She’s a very fat cat and loves her food, so there’s no way she’ll let a little wood-o-phobia get in the way of eating. But when she’s done, she quickly goes to the rug in front of the kitchen sink, then leaps from there to the rug in front of the refridgerator, about a six foot jump. From there the dining room rug is a quick hop, then another hop out to the carpeted hallway. Ahhh, now she can relax!
Any other cats out there with wood-o-phobia?
Oh, and for those of you that need a kitty picture, here you go.
Maybe she slipped and fell on the floor one day when you weren’t around. If she panicked when she fell and started scrambling to get up, slipping and sliding, it could have been a scary experience. That might be what’s making her nervous-- a bad memory.
Secondly, it might be the way the floor feels on her paws. Some cats have very sensitive feet (that’s why they say that if you want to keep your cats off the counters, put down a sheet of tin foil.)
My fat cat, Baby aka Jabba DeCat, isn’t afraid of wood but she does have one odd fear. She’s afraid of my sneezes. It’s gotten to the point that I only have to take a deep breath and she scurries away to hide under the bed.
A fall is possible, but I can’t imagine this lard-butt cat going fast enough to have a fall. She has never (to my knowledge, anyway) climbed on the counters, either.
I don’t think it’s her paws, either. She doesn’t have any trouble walking across the tile in the entry, and she’s spends hours hanging out on the concrete driveway.
On the other hand, Scarlett likes to curl up against my tailbone when I sleep, and if, during the course of the night, some uh…gas escapes, she immediately begins purring like crazy.
On the National Geographic Channel show “The Dog Whisperer” there was a Great Dane who was deathly afraid of linoleum floors. The owner was a woman of average build - there was no way she could drag this poor pooch across the floor.
The dog whisperer himself, Cesar Milan (sp?) took the dog to the offending floor and literally dragged the beast across several times until he realized “hey, linoleum’s not all that bad!” It took alot of doing but the dog finally got over it.
I recall in puppy class that we did a few exercises with the dogs having to walk across different surfaces. Apparently, to dogs at least, walking on new or unfamiliar surfaces is something they have to learn. Especially if the surface is shiny.
Now…your cat is about 1/100th the size of a Dane and it’s not a dog, but still if I were you I’d take some time to help kitty out with her problem. Maybe take some toys and snacks to the wood floor and sit down with her and play. Being afraid of stuff isn’t a good way to live, poor thing
We had a cat that was afraid of various things, but he got over most of them eventually. I think something about a particular sound/object/location would scare him once (he was a nervous guy) and it would take a while for him to forget. I bet your kitty will get over her fear soon, especially since her food is on the scary floor.
I used to know a girl whose littel chihuahua-mix dog was terrified of walking on any non-carpeted surface. Then she got his nails clipped, and he stopped being afraid. Apparently, the little “click click click” of his own toenails on linoleum terrified him.
