I like this video because the cat hits back. I love it when the cat hits back, which is extremely rare if the antagonist is a person. But I hate the video. It is horrible. So often the cat just becomes defensive and aggressive if he is constantly abused.
This video show a kid crying then hitting the cat hard. My guess is that the child was too rough with the cat before the filming and then the cat attacked the child. Then the child hit the cat hard as we see in the video whereupon the cat attacked.
What is disturbing is that this pre-schooler boy was about to hit the cat again but the cat got in first. This was probably a crime under the state’s animal protection laws although kids this age cannot be held criminally responsible. He seems like a thoroughly nasty and aggressive boy but perhaps his behavior in the video is not typical.
Also, why for God’s sake is the mother (or father?) filming the whole damn thing? What is going on? In my opinion this family should not keep a cat. This should not have happened. It makes me feel quite certain that this sort of thing – children mishandling cats – happens behind closed doors quite a lot.
The whole episode is tragic, really, because it is a total failure of cat caretaking and the parents are to blame. They are a failure in respect of cat caretaking.
It is the sort of behavior that leads to a defensive cat which in turn leads to the cat becoming unmanageable, whereupon the cat is relinquished to a cat shelter where of course the cat is killed. Voilà. The future is mapped out unless something good happens.
You can hear the mother saying it now “Oh, my cat is way too aggressive, he’ll have to go…” (update after reading Marc’s comment: this last sentence is me guessing what the mother might say after this sort of thing goes on for several months. She does not actually say it.)
Well good for that cat! I’m so pleased the kid got knocked right off the bed, that might teach it a lesson, I just hope the cat wasn’t “punished” for sticking up for itself, that was a real hard slap, it breaks my heart to think of the millions of animals that must have to live like that. As for whoever was filming they deserve a beating themselves for not stopping it from happening.
I didn’t want to watch, but I did.
It’s horrible. I’m happy the cat didn’t retreat. The parents have no business having a cat or a kid.
What that child did was LEARNED behavior! Slapping isn’t inborn.
Good idea Michael.
I’m not so sure it’s that unusual because it seems that even at almost 5 years old a child doesn’t realise when he is doing wrong.
We heard a terrible noise one day and looked out of my bedroom window. The child next door had let the Rottweiler out of his kennel into the garden where the 2 little jack russells were playing, then stood laughing while the big dog had one of the little ones in his mouth, shaking him like an old rag. Whose fault? The fathers of course because he’d left them unsupervised and wouldn’t even have known it was happening if we hadn’t alerted him. He of course says it was an accident but that little dog is dead now and the child has no concept that he caused it.
I don’t know much about children so no idea at what age they should start knowing right from wrong but I think parents are very wrong to risk the pets of the family being abused by young children.
I might do an article on that today: young children who mishandle, hurt and abuse the family cat. I am convinced that it is not usual.