Cat Meows Underwater Video Critique

For anyone is who has sensibilities towards animal welfare, this video of a cat meowing under water has to be upsetting. Firstly, the cat is not actually meowing under water. He or she has her mouth slightly under water so the meow sounds interesting to the sort of blockheads who like funny cat videos at the expense of an unhappy cat.

Here are a couple of stills from the video in case it is removed from YouTube (note: I have cleaned up the colour in these stills):

cat meowing under water

The still images actually help focus the mind because one can only come to one conclusion: the cat is unhappy. Also, this cat looks confused and frightened to me.

The cat’s owner says:

“[the cat] does not like the bathtub…”

That would seem to be an admission that he put the cat in the bathtub. Or his partner did. That is not a good start. Here’s the video:

VIDEO NO LONGER WORKS – SORRY.

This cat is very static, indeed. She looks as though she has been washed all over as her head and ears are wet. Perhaps she was dirty and the owner has cleaned her and then decided to video her looking miserable. I think that is about the kindest assessment I can make.

Her static stance is worrying. It can only be due to fear, confusion or intimidation. My guess is that fear or anxiety coupled with confusion are the main emotions.

And for a cat to let her mouth fall slightly below the water line is also very strange. That supports the confusion theory, for me.

The cat’s owner laughs at his cat while he is videoing. To be frank, he sounds a bit idiotic to me but I am a bit of a grumpy old geezer.

Conclusion

YouTube lets video makers put a description under their video. There is no description for this video, which indicates some guilt. What I mean is there was probably no good reason for putting this cat in the water other than to film her being anxious and to see what happened.

However, to be as fair and as objective as possible, putting a cat in a water-filled bathtub when she hates the bathtub is not necessarily nasty behavior because the cat might need to be washed for a good reason. One reason might be that she had a chemical on her fur, which couldn’t be licked off by the cat because it would poison her.

However, to film her after washing her (if that was the case), leaving her in the water looking confused and miserable and even possibly swallowing some water is once again an abuse of a cat for financial gain for the cat’s owner.

This video has acquired 2.5m views. It would have made some money for the video maker. How much? At a wild guess about $50+ a month. Small stuff but still money made at the expense of a cat.

When your cat is fairly obviously distressed, you don’t grab the camcorder and film her. You make her feel better as soon as possible, don’t you?

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Comments

Cat Meows Underwater Video Critique — 27 Comments

Ruth (Monty's Mom) on April 17, 2013 at 12:46 pm said:
There are a lot of videos around showing cats enjoying water. There’s one of a cat soaking in a tub of water with the most contented look on his face that it reminds me of me soaking in a hot bath. Maybe you should try to locate that video and feature it, Michael. There is so much sadness in the world right now and this video is very sad.
I keep wondering what Monty would do if he had daily access to a pond. We had a huge puddle out there while my snow hill was melting and he kept playing in it. At first he seemed not to like it but his curiosity was too strong. As the puddle grew in size Monty grew more bold, wading around in it. He’d do the little paw shaking dance when he came out, but then back in he’d go. My sister saw it and couldn’t believe it. She felt bad for him– his poor cold wet paws! But he was going in the puddle, we were just looking on from a distance shaking our heads. I put a video of him doing it in my Facebook page.
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- Michael on April 17, 2013 at 4:57 pm said:
  Hi Ruth. Yes, lots of cats like and love being in water. They should do because a decent percentage of wild cats like water because it cools them in hot climates and there is food in and round water. This is the video I think you are referring to:
  https://pictures-of-cats.org/Cat-Playing-In-Water.html
  Sorry the video is sad. I agree that we can’t focus on sadness all the time. I try have some fun too. I like larking around. I think Monty’s behavior in water shows the natural attraction domestic cats can have to it. It is a personality based attraction but there is some hard-wired attraction to water in the domestic cat generally.
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  - Ruth (Monty's Mom) on April 17, 2013 at 5:44 pm said:
    I sent you an email of my video of Monty playing in the puddle. Unfortunately, I only took one video, when the puddle was small. As it got bigger he got more crazy about it, but I never thought to film that. Better would have been a film of the look on my sister’s face watching him. She thinks my cat is nuts. Often she says, “Kobe (her cat) would never do that!”
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  - Ruth (Monty's Mom) on April 17, 2013 at 6:02 pm said:
    That isn’t the video I meant. I will try to find it and send you the link. The one I saw a cat is soaking in a plastic tub of water and he just looks so happy and content. He’s not playing, just soaking in it, the way I like to soak in a hot bath. I have to assume the water he’s in is heated. I hope I can find it. The water is probably not good for his skin and his coat– just like my mom’s cat who would swim out into Lake Delton to get to her out on a raft anchored in the middle of the bay. They couldn’t stop the cat from swimming out to them– it’s what she wanted to do. She insisted on being with them. But it really made her fur dry like straw. That’s what my mom said. It was before my time.
    My childhood cat, Mittens, liked to be bathed in the sink with the sprayer. Mom gave her a bath once when she was sticky and once she’d had a bath that way she didn’t want to groom anymore, she wanted Mom to bathe her all the time. I have a picture labeled “Bath time for a Muttonhead” with Mutsy sitting in the sink looking happy and content, but wet. She just preferred to have mom give her baths. I guess that was one of the reasons we called her Muttonhead. But we loved her and I wish she could still be around. She and Monty would have gotten along famously. She could teach him how to get out of trees and catch mice and he could teach her how to groom herself instead of being so silly to want to get a bath in the sink.
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Rose on April 16, 2013 at 10:27 am said:
Horrible cruel monsters I don’t suppose the cat was even needing a bath they just did it for their own fun.
If I knew where the cat was I’d go and get her off them,I can’t bear to think what else she might suffer.
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- marc on April 16, 2013 at 10:40 am said:
  I would do the same Rose. If I ever found out about something like this going on around me I would probably go and take the cat away from the people who are being cruel if there was any way I could.
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- Michael on April 16, 2013 at 11:56 am said:
  Yes, wouldn’t it be nice to march into their home, grab the cat and say, “bye bye, you’re not good enough”. People want good things to happen. We are tired of the same old cr*p.
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  - Rose on April 17, 2013 at 9:20 am said:
    Yes we are tired of the same old cr*p Micheal,that’s a much more genteel word than the disgusting word bulls**t,that word sickens me.
    Animal abuse has gone on far too long and there aren’t enough of us trying to stop it.People turn away and let it happen,how can they do that?
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Ruth aka Kattaddorra on April 16, 2013 at 7:19 am said:
lol good one Kevin.
I was actually thinking of a bath tub big enough to hold sharks, so that after those cat abusers were as shocked and helpless under water as that poor cat, I’d let them have a good dinner and then take them back to the sea.
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- kevin roche on April 16, 2013 at 7:38 am said:
  when you say “them” you mean the sharks would have a good dinner,right?
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  - Ruth aka Kattaddorra on April 16, 2013 at 8:43 am said:
    Yes Kevin lol
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Ruth aka Kattaddorra on April 16, 2013 at 6:52 am said:
She’s given up trying to fight whoever did it and escape from them, she’s in shock, which can paralyse a cat for a while.
I’d like to fill a huge bath and hold those who did this to her under water and not EVER let them surface again.
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- kevin roche on April 16, 2013 at 6:58 am said:
  ruth,make sure that it’s ice water!!!!
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Dan in Tempe on April 16, 2013 at 5:57 am said:
What an idiot. The poor thing looks tired to me. I wonder how long she fought him during the bath. Why doesn’t she try to get out? This guy is abusing her by his treatment of her in the video, but what happened before the video. What an idiot…
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- Michael on April 16, 2013 at 6:47 am said:
  Why doesn’t she try to get out?
  This is what totally perturbs me too. Why is she so static, almost paralyzed? This has to be fear and confusion and it is as if she knows she has to stay in the water. She has been forced to stay there. When a cat behaves like this inside a home the cause has to be the people living in home. Not good.
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  - Marc on April 16, 2013 at 9:29 am said:
    The fact that the cat has given up and is not fighting to get out means the humans are incredibly sinister. I wonder what they did to make the cat freeze and give up like that. It’s abuse – it screams abuse. Cats don’t need baths either. What is up with youtube. I guess nobody cares enough and the law included – what do they care about what’s on youtube.
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Ruth aka Kattaddorra on April 15, 2013 at 7:52 pm said:
To me that cat looks as if she has been ill treated! Look at the way she is licking and gulping nervously, I’d say she has been held forcibly under water for the amusement of some stupid idiots and now is in shock and hardly dare move, but I hope to God’s sake I’m wrong.
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- Michael on April 15, 2013 at 8:29 pm said:
  in shock
  Yes, good point. She may be shock of some kind. Her behavior is certainly unnatural.
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  - kevin roche on April 16, 2013 at 2:47 am said:
    I can tell the poor kitty is in shock and frozen in fear without even watching the video.If the kitty needed to be cleaned,the proper way of cleaning her would have been to clean her in the kitchen sink and use a wash cloth….the idiot who took the video of this poor cat may have well have taken her and threw her into a swimming pool!!!!who in their right mind takes a cat and puts them into a bathtub full of water.I hope they were at least smart enough to make the water a comfortable temperature…..
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    - kevin roche on April 16, 2013 at 2:51 am said:
      excuse my typing errors,but you know what i mean.
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      - Michael on April 16, 2013 at 6:44 am said:
        Totally. Message received loud and clear 😉
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    - Michael on April 16, 2013 at 6:43 am said:
      Great comment. It put a smile on my face. You say what I would like to say. I don’t like the person who made the video. He seems callous.
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      - kevin roche on April 16, 2013 at 6:56 am said:
        did you notice how he did’nt show how the bath began or ended? right there that explains that the kitty was not in the tub of water for her benefit,but this idiot seems to have put the video on youtube for at least mostly his own benefit !!!
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    - Ruth (Monty's Mom) on April 16, 2013 at 7:51 pm said:
      I’ve washed Monty in the bathtub but only because he went under my car and got himself all oily. I was just afraid that he was too dirty, and the substances on his fur were too toxic, that just using a washcloth on him might not get all of it. I went as fast as I could with the procedure and I certainly didn’t stop to take any pictures of him. When he meowed pitifully I certainly wasn’t laughing. I felt really bad for him. But I’d feel worse if he got poisoned. Now with the fence up between the porch and the garage Monty can’t get to the cars. And I got the oil leaked fixed so even if he did it wouldn’t be so bad. That’s how I found out about the leak. It was spraying out under pressure and getting the underside of the car dirty, but very little was ever dripping onto the ground. Aside from an accident like that, where chemicals like motor oil and heaven knows what else are smeared all over the back of your kitty, on his head, on his ears, and even on his tail, there just isn’t the need to dunk him. And even then, what cat caretaker would laugh and take pleasure in it? Some cats do like water, and I don’t mind those internet videos that show cats enjoying it, even though it isn’t really good for their fur. But this cat is so obviously miserable. What is funny about that?
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      - Ruth (Monty's Mom) on April 16, 2013 at 8:19 pm said:
        I also didn’t take any pictures because we have found the best way to wash Monty when it was necessary (which never happens anymore) was for me to get into the tub naked with warm water in there already and then my husband handed Monty to me. When he was washed and rinsed I handed him back to Jeff who had a towel ready. Monty purred as Jeff cradled him in the towel (so long as he didn’t hold him for too long.) I was the mean one who had to do the washing.
        I found that as I was kneeling in the tub with Monty it was better if I was not clothed. You would think it would be the opposite, but Monty is such a good cat that he won’t scratch me at all. I once tried washing him by kneeling outside the tub fully clothed and that was a lot worse because he was trying to grab onto my clothes. If I’m wearing clothes he latches on with his claws to the clothes and my skin gets very scratched. I don’t think he realizes that will happen. He thinks he’s just latching onto cloth. If I’m right in there with him without any clothes on he won’t latch onto me or scratch and if he gets upset I can just hug his little soapy body and calm him. I don’t think he even actually minds water too much, it’s more that it takes too long. Same with brushing and claw trimming. He is a busy cat with things to do. We found it went fastest for me to hold Monty out of the water, usually with him standing on my leg, to scrub him up and then dunking him in to quickly rinse him, plus my husband had a cup to pour water. We never put his head under and were very careful around his face and ears. He never, ever, as dirty and oily as he had been, was a wet as the cat in the video during a bath. I would never put his head under and you sure don’t want to risk getting contaminated water in a cat’s ears. Once he actually swam a little in the tub. I must have had it a little deeper that time. I don’t know that he actually disliked that part. I think he mainly disliked how long it took me to get him clean. He’s funny that way even about affection. I can hold him, but not for too long.
        Speed is the most important thing with claw trimming, brushing or bathing if, God forbid, it ever becomes necessary again. I can’t imagine being like the imbeciles who made this video and deliberately prolong something my cat doesn’t like. He’s my little friend. Yes, sometimes I have to do things he is not fond of like taking him to the vet, but I don’t relish his discomfort. I dislike it as much as he does.
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      - kevin roche on April 16, 2013 at 11:30 pm said:
        I have a large kitchen sink with one of those sprayers that you can pull out of it.when my cat needs a “bath” my kitchen sink is plenty big enouugh.he isn’t the size of a puma and with the water sprayer that pulls out of my sink i can give him a cat size shower.but before i do that i use a wet washcloth and slowly wet him down as not to shock him by suddenly dousing him wtth water.olso the only way he goes out is while im supervising him while using a leash and harness,that way there are’nt any “accidents”…
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        Ruth (Monty's Mom) on April 17, 2013 at 1:41 am said:
        After I took him to the vet in his leash and harness, thinking he would prefer that to being carted around in his first carrier which was just a corrugated box (from Animal Control) he won’t let me put the leash on him anymore. Even before that he was getting upset when he’d get into underbrush and the leash tangled. I’d try to free it and he thought I was bringing him in and he’d hiss and growl at me. So I let him be off leash but out with him. He didn’t always go for the car, but every time he did required a bath. So we put in the fence. He never goes over any fences. He just seems to accept it as a barrier. A friend said her cat would be right over a chain link fence, even a tall one. Not Monty. Now that we’ve blocked trees he gets stuck in with chicken wire his outside time is pretty routine and without mishaps. He has his pattern of sniffing the perimeter, climbing certain trees. Come summer and bee season I’d like to get him back in the leash. If I can’t he will only go out early in the morning and at twilight. Probably better anyway since the birds aren’t active then.
        My sink didn’t have a sprayer until last week when Jeff put in a new faucet. Yeah!
        I’m a bad person for having the car that was leaking. It should be scrapped and I can’t bring myself to do it. I even have friends in low places who removed the catalytic converter and put dual glasspacks on it. It’s loud, it pollutes and it gets 14 miles to the gallon if you don’t open all four barrels. So not only can I not control Monty (he has me wrapped around his paw) I cling to my lost youth with a car that is nothing but bad for the environment, a vehicle that if everyone had one– well, it would be horribly bad. That’s why I say that all humans are evil, not just ones who would make a video like that. I know that I am as bad as they are, and just because I care about Monty doesn’t change it.
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