Question Of The Day. Saturday 10th Of June.

[Norachan]

Good morning.



Does your cat have any irrational fears or phobias? I don't mean fear of the vacuum cleaner or the post man, those are perfectly rational things to be scared of. I mean fear of things cat aren't usually bothered by.

Forest Cat is scared of bees. He'll poke his head out of the cat flap some afternoons, but if hears any buzzing he darts back in and runs upstairs to hide. If he goes out in the enclosure it's after dark, when the bees are all asleep.

Marley is scared of Velcro. I have a Velcro strap around my yoga mat and whenever I pull it open Marley gets all bristly and runs off.

How about your cats, what are they scared of?

 

[verna davies]

Haven't noticed anything unusual about mine (yet!). Just the usual...vet, strangers and so on. Bees and Velcro, I wonder why.

 

[cheeser]

Buddy's fears are pretty rational, e.g. thunderstorms, fireworks, etc.

But Oscar is terrified of zydeco music, and the Aggie War Hymn. Guess he must be a t-sip.

 

[Columbine]

Asha's fears are all pretty rational too - vacuum cleaner, hairdryer, furniture being moved etc. Oh, she did get REALLY scared when mum was frying courgettes (zucchini) - the noise they made going into the hot pan really freaked her out, and she went and hid on a chair pushed under the dining table for over an hour, all fluffed up and bottle-brush tail.

She has a very strange reaction to the people at the door too - the second she hears a knock, she starts growling this busy little growl. So cute and funny. I think Leah (our lab) has taught her to be a guard-cat

 

[miagi's_mommy]

Angel is afraid of strangers that are loud in my apartment complex hallway... she doesn't really like loud unfamiliar voices. Neither do I that's why she's my girl.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

Milly is terrified of part of a retro aluminum tea/coffee filter we have for an old teapot.

Her first visit with it two years ago [see photo] resulted in her batting her paws at it a few times, hissing, then running away. Now we can barely set it out, and she disappears from the kitchen within seconds.


Must have something to do with the multitude of tiny holes in it? I don't know. It's part of a filter assembly, and it's only this part she is scared of:

 

[muffy]

Buddy was scared of lighting and he would hide behind the couch and Tiger was scared of the noise that aluminum foil made. Those two brave souls were my alpha cats.

Muffy

 

[Norachan]

Milly is terrified of part of a retro aluminum tea/coffee filter we have for an old teapot.

A coffee filter! ARRRGGGGH!

Buddy was scared of lighting and he would hide behind the couch and Tiger was scared of the noise that aluminum foil made. Those two brave souls were my alpha cats.

Muffy

I recently found that if you tape a bit of aluminum foil up in an area your cat likes to spray it will stop them doing it. Hiro used to spray the front door, but I don't think he likes the sound it makes when his pee hits the foil. He hasn't sprayed there in over a week.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Mooch is afraid of bubbles. I bought a nice bottle of catnip bubbles. Noodles went nuts! Mooch hid in the laundry room!

 

[jcat]

Mowgli is claustrophobic. Unlike most cats, he won't get into small spaces and absolutely refuses to be covered in any way. He was found in a barrel at around 4 months, which might have something to do with it.

Jamie was terrified of grapes. I always put that down to him being stung by a wasp that was on our grapevine.

 

[Winchester]

I don't know that our kids are afraid of anything. They don't really react during t-storms; if we get a loud crack of thunder and Molli and I are in bed, she'll awake, but as long as I'm not showing any anxiety or anything, she's good. I think they watch us to see if they should be worried. If we act normally, so do they. (Bootser, an angel kitty now, was petrified of t-storms for years; as soon as it would start to thunder, even way off in the distance, she'd go down to the basement door and huddle on the step until the storm passed. Eventually though, she got over it; I remember one night I was serving supper and the thunder cracked; we thought she'd zoom out of the kitchen down the steps to the door. But she looked up and me and I was just standing there. She figured, "Well, you know, I'm really hungry!" and kept eating. And that was that; she never ran again.)

When people come to visit, the cats all remain out in the open and they like to welcome people. That can make it bad when people come who don't really care for cats much; fortunately that doesn't often happen. We do have a friend who is in the beginning stages of dementia; he used to love our kids and loved that they all jumped on his lap when he visited. Now, when he comes and they jump up on him, he puts his hands in the air and he seems very troubled by them. He's never said anything, but we can tell and we do try to keep the cats away from him. Which is hard because they don't understand.

Even Amber, who was known as our Phantom Kitty because we always talked about her, but nobody ever saw her, is now out and about more than she used to be. She, particularly, fell in love with our friend and she doesn't understand why he doesn't like her anymore.

When the doorbell rings or people knock on the door, everybody comes running. "Who's there? Who is it? Must see! Hello! Pay attention to us!" That's pretty much the way it is.

Really, I can't think of anything our gang seems to be afraid of or uncomfortable with.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

i had to think about this, and i can't think of any irrational fears that my cats have.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Not that I've found. Hekitty definitely does not like the "light-flashies and rumble-grumbles" of a storm, but not even the vacuum really gets to her. She just gets up and stomps out, mumbling words I'm glad I can't hear. Other than storms...well...maybe running out of Temptations?