What is wrong with OMG cat?

For me, OMG Cat looks like another example of dumbed down human behavior at the expense of the domestic cat. It is a personal viewpoint and I respect the views of others. If I am correct, YouTube are behaving badly too in publishing it. YouTube as we know is owned by Google. Come on Google! You need to set the standards on the internet because you’re the biggest presence on the internet and there is no one else who will set standards.

As there have been more that 20 million views of this short video called “The OMG Cat” (OMG = oh my god), I am sure most visitors to this page know the cat well.

The cat is a little, lightweight, gray tabby and white moggie. Her name is Choco. I have decided she is female but we are told nothing about this cat by the video maker other than her name. There are almost 25,000 comments on YouTube but I only see one from the 100 or so that I checked that referred to the possibility of Choco being ill. Most comments are just stupid.

In the video Choco gradually opens her mouth and holds it wide open until the video stops.The mouth ends up being opened to an unnaturally wide amount. Cats hardly ever do this and it indicates a medical problem.

I am not going to show the video because that would be promoting it. I’ll show a still picture from the video instead. This is the link to the video on YouTube. I have provided this because I refer to the way the video has been made.

What is wrong with Choco medically?

Perhaps the better question is “is there something wrong medically?” It very much seems that way. However, Choco does not look as if she is distressed. Although improbable, I almost believe that she has been trained to open her mouth like that.

Note: If someone can prove to me that Choco is healthy and her wide open mouth is strange but normal behavior, for her, I will be pleased to amend this post. Someone may well have a definitive answer. Is it a fake as Dan in the comments suggests?

What is making this cat hold he mouth wide open? The only suggestions I have seen on the internet are:

• broken jaw causing pain
• jaw infection causing pain
• mouth disease causing discomfort

There is nothing that I know of that supports these suggestions but they could be correct. If Choco does suffer from a medical condition the symptom is unusual; mouth wide open.

A wide open mouth suggests to me a difficulty in inhaling enough air. In other words Choco is short of breath.  A condition that would cause this is pleural effusion. It is liquid build up around the lungs which compresses the lungs making breathing difficult. The cause can be trauma (a blow to the chest or abdomen). Or it might be caused by one of the nasty diseases such as FIP or FeLV.

A symptom of this condition is to sit with chest expanded and head and neck extended and to breath with the mouth open.

I am not saying this is the medical problem or even that Choco has a medical problem. I am just saying that it looks that way to me and I think the video maker should explain what is going on. The fact that he has not supports the argument that Choco has a health problem.

The Video

The video is interesting because the video maker started filming before Choco had opened his mouth. This strongly indicates that the video maker knew Choco would open his mouth which further indicates that Choco opens his mouth a lot like that. His behavior was predictable. A person would not video his cat just sitting minding her own business.

The video maker even lowers the camera angle as he films to make Choco’s mouth more visible. This indicates he was filming the cat’s mouth. It was not a lucky event but a planned one.

If I am correct, it confirms that Choco is ill and the most likely cause is that she is having difficulty in getting air into her lungs so has to facilitate air flow with a wide open mouth.