Our daughter, MilliCal, has taken to running YouTube videos of birds, squirrels, and mice for our cats.
The cats have become addicted to the videos, watching them for hours, and crying when they want the laptop to be powered up to run the videos. One of them has even bitten our daughter – something she NEVER does – when she tried to turn the video off.
I swear this is all absolutely true.
Actual web article about CAT TV
I do not know about animal psychology, but I can tell you that while cats certainly like watching things, that is a prelude to chasing and playing with things, and, ultimately, hunting and killing things. Kittens, especially, will play with anything. That is why the mother will first bring home dead mice and voles, then they watch her finish off live prey, and later the hungry kittens have to do it themselves. Too much watching could leave the cat overstimulated which would explain a bite (a cat may also bite if startled when focused on another cat or a dog). I would just get them a bunch of bouncy balls and other cat toys.
Just don’t give them access to gay porn.
We have a plethora of “other cat toys” around the house, much of it littering (no pun intended) our floors.
The TV was something new
… and this cat never took a bath again.
That was hilarious! I think I’ve watched it about six times now. Thanks for posting!
Apart from one cat I had who loved watching basketball, our cats never noticed TV until we got our first flat-screen, and even then it wasn’t until we got a giant 4K TV that the animals really started watching. We sometimes put on nature documentaries for them, but we’ll need to show them the birds! They already have some live bird shows through our windows, but that’s not always on.
My pleasure. The first time I saw the clip, it didn’t have a title, so I didn’t know it was, “Psycho,” until I listened to the soundtrack and then I was Oh, that cat is in for a scare! Someone probably goosed it at the crucial time, but still… big fun.
Can’t. Stop. Laughing!
(bolding mine)
One thing I love about cats is how much body language they have. Not just the body/head movements, but pupils dilating, ears twitching/flattening, etc. I can tell when my cat is in a pouncing mood from his pupils alone.
My cat, Trei, loves to sit in my lap when I’m online. Several months ago I put on a video of squirrels to see if she would watch. When she finally caught a glimpse, she was fascinated. We watched for a while and then I went on to something else. A few hours later, I came in the office and she was standing on the laptop keyboard. I had the forums open and “create a new topic” was on the screen with a bunch of characters in the title box. Fortunately, she hadn’t posted, though I did a check of all the forums to make sure. She doesn’t get to watch videos anymore.
I would like to have seen Trei’s post.
I second that! I’ll bet Trei has a very interesting perspective on this topic.
That video of the cat watching Psycho is funny as anything. Thanks for posting it!
I had a cat who liked to watch TV football with me. He would ignore all other sports, and had no use for TV generally—comedies, dramas, news, whatever, none held any interest for him. Unless football was on. Then, he would jump up on the arm of my chair, and we’d watch the game together.
He was a big mackerel tabby cat, so I guess his favourite NFL team was the Cincinnati Bengals, and his favourite CFL team was the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. But he didn’t care; if I was watching football on TV, he’d be watching with me.
Spot enjoys watching F1 with me, but he fell madly in love with Willow, to the point of spending 30 minutes trying to get her out of the TV.
Our basketball-watching cat wouldn’t watch football at all. Maybe he had reservations about the number of injuries and wanted a less rough-and-tumble sport. Cats, man.
My cat Toby used to watch Meerkat Manor by standing on two legs and leaning on the entertainment center. I think he thought he was a meerkat.