Cat Attacks Young Lady While She Plays A Flute. Why?

The Daily Mail newspaper states that this black-and-white cat attacks the flute playing woman because he hates the music.  The journalist says that the cat is enraged by the music and meows menacingly.  The flute player is brave, the journalist states, and carries on playing.  This is a battle between an angry cat and a gentle woman according to this newspaper’s journalist.  But of course we know it isn’t anything like that at all. It is the usual media hype. The question, though, is why is this cat intent on biting the woman playing the flute?  It is quite an interesting thought.

Cat attacks flute player
Cat “attacks” flute player

https://youtu.be/Vmcy0Uw2w0Y

Firstly, I’m going to suggest that this cat is not attacking the woman.  The cat is in fact trying to “play-fight” with the woman.  Cats do this a lot. They like to play and when a cat plays they do so with their teeth and claws in an “aggression-limited” fight and in a certain way which is not a true attack but what we might call “rough and tumble”.

Cat "attacks" flute player
Cat “attacks” flute player

Therefore, I would suggest that the sound of the music might have provoked the cat into wishing to play.  Alternatively, the music might not be playing any part whatsoever in this scenario.  Perhaps the cat simply wanted to play some more because the woman was there and she had been playing with her cat beforehand.  An alternative possibility is that the cat was provoked by the sound of the music because the sound may have triggered an instinct to attack prey.  Perhaps the sound mimicked the sound of prey; the sort of sound that is embedded in the cat’s DNA as possible prey. The flute does sound like an owl for instance.

You can see that this is not a serious attack as the paper has described because the woman is treating it as a form of play herself.  Therefore, she knows what her cat is doing because she understands her cat and no doubt he has done it before.

My conclusion is (and I am open to counter arguments of course) that the sound of the flute provoked a play-fight attack because the sound triggered an “attack prey response” from the cat. The cat is not enraged by anything and certainly not my music. Something may have occurred before the video was made and I’ll suggest, too, that the video was made deliberately knowing that the cat would “attack”. It is possible that before the start of the video the young woman had already being playing with her cat so her cat was in a rumbustious mood and wished to continue. This latter suggestion is my preferred one at this stage.

7 thoughts on “Cat Attacks Young Lady While She Plays A Flute. Why?”

  1. The author of the best comment will receive an Amazon gift of their choice at Christmas! Please comment as they can add to the article and pass on your valuable experience.
  2. Nice to hear that your cat appears to like music. Cats liking music is an interesting but as yet little known area of feline behaviour. Thanks for commenting Alan.

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