You’ve got natural domestic cat zoomies and zoomies created for social media and they can be different because as we see in the video below, zoomies captured for social media – in this case TikTok – can be contrived with the cat being stressed up by the desires of their owner to achieve those precious viewing figures so craved by users.
Ben the Vet makes a good point. I really like Ben as he has the courage to be critical when necessary. Being sensible and critical on social media does not always result in popularity as users of social media want to escape reality and be amused by ubiquitous funny cat videos.
In this instance is appears that the cat’s owner placed a torn up white plastic bag around the neck of their cat which scared the cat causing them to run around the room. We don’t know for sure but that’s what it looks like to me and if I’m right Ben is right too.
People do some extraordinary things with their cats to make funny cat videos. It’s been found that around 35% of cats in funny cat videos are stressed which is unsurprising to me as cats are often manipulated into doing unnatural things in these videos.
Without wishing to be too boringly serious (see, I feel guilty about being serious) domestic cat zoomies even when they are entirely natural are a cause of concern as it means that the cat is bored.
Due to an unchallenged lifestyle, normally because the cat is full-time indoors, energy levels build up which have to be expended in a burst of mindless activity. The whole purpose is to burn energy which results in the cat dashing around the house achieving nothing except to amuse the owner (maybe) and the video audience.
This leads to the inevitable discussion about environmental enrichment and mental stimulation. These are two aspects of cat caregiving which are often – almost always – neglected for full-time indoor cats. Cat owners blithely state that their cat likes to sleep all day. Not problem they say.
Problem, I say. Yes, domestic cats naturally sleep a lot as this behavior is inherited from their wildcat ancestor who’s a pretty successful hunter and therefore has the luxury of sleeping rather than hunting but owners should not conflate this form of behavior with sleeping because the domestic cat is totally unchallenged. They need challenges.
I mean even a puzzle feeder would be a help. Leash training perhaps. That’s a bit of a challenge for the owner! But if my cat was an indoor cat, I’d leash train him. He is already partly leash trained.
The experts say that domestic cats are thicker than wild cats. Yes, because they are unchallenged. Their minds are insufficiently exercised. Wild cats are constantly searching for food and meeting the other challenges of survival. Not so the cossetted domestic cat (in good homes).
I’ve fruitlessly campaigned for more cat friendly environments for indoor cats. Cat owners still think of their home as theirs and not shared between them and their cat. The environment is built for humans with the domestic cat as an accoutrement.
In truth, if the cat is regarded as a family member as we often hear the environment inside the cat owner’s home should be a pleasant and interesting place for both cat and person in near equal measure. It never is.
