One weird trick for your cat
April 14, 2017 9:28 AM   Subscribe

Thinking inside the box: Veterinarian Chris Brown read on the internet that if you mark a rectangle on your floor with masking tape, your cat will be drawn to it like Maru to an Amazon box. So he tried it. And so did thousands of other people in the comments. [FB, some non-FB links inside.]

Some non-Facebook round-ups of similar content:
Cat tape trap trick
Non-tape cat trap tricks.

Some particularly amusing comments from the FB thread, the direct links for which probably won't work if you're not logged into Facebook:
Works on other species better.
May not work if your cat is afraid of tape.
Clearly this man needs more tape.
Think inside the basket.
Fuck your box.
posted by jacquilynne (40 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I feel like these people are generally wayyyyyy too blase about the likelihood of accidentally summoning some kind of 300-pound cat demon within the sigil.
posted by praemunire at 9:36 AM on April 14, 2017 [57 favorites]


I think that only happens if you make it with salt?
posted by jacquilynne at 9:40 AM on April 14, 2017 [16 favorites]


Previously
posted by b33j at 9:50 AM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


As a non-FB-user that primary link in your post is basically useless - it shows none of the comments, so all I get is two pictures of a cat and some tape.
posted by komara at 9:50 AM on April 14, 2017 [12 favorites]


I tested it from an Incognito window, and I just had to click on where it says "14K comments" and the comments open up. Though, umm, just fair warning, in the comments pretty much all you're going to get is more pictures of a cat and some tape.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:56 AM on April 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


I have an old laptop soft-case that my cat always sits on. It's thin and basically a square. We call it her "charging station".

I also like to make sure the charging station is in a sunbeam, for extra charging power.
posted by juice boo at 10:05 AM on April 14, 2017 [33 favorites]


Well, this is the internet. It's about 89% cats to begin with, so the tape itself may be the draw here, just out of sheer novelty.

(Can't wait to go home and try this with my cats. I even know where my roll of tape is.)
posted by caution live frogs at 10:05 AM on April 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


I like seeing everyone's different cats, tape-sigil or not. But curious minds want to know: does this work for big cats?
posted by Mizu at 10:06 AM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Report: my ex-cat (now living with ex-colleague) was having none of it.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:11 AM on April 14, 2017


Little-known fact: all cats fancy themselves to be News Directors for semi-successful Midwest radio stations.
posted by Guy Smiley at 10:17 AM on April 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


Huh... so that's how people got their cats wedged in their scanners.
posted by MrVisible at 10:23 AM on April 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


The cats have their own news network now. (Far superior to CNN) And Les Nessman was always one of TV's most cat-like characters (prior to some of the people on Cheers and Seinfeld).
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:25 AM on April 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


I put a painter's tape box on the carpet and invited the cat over.

Cat ponders box. Cat sits in box. Cat starts pulling up a corner. Gets half a side pulled up, starts licking the sticky part of the tape.

Wanders off.
posted by aniola at 10:34 AM on April 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


These sort of tricks only work for my cat if it's clear I'm extremely interested in the trap and will be upset if she sits there.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:40 AM on April 14, 2017 [12 favorites]


I feel like these people are generally wayyyyyy too blase about the likelihood of accidentally summoning some kind of 300-pound cat demon within the sigil.

I...
I...
I don't see the problem.
posted by wotsac at 10:48 AM on April 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


Well, this is the internet. It's about 89% cats to begin with, so the tape itself may be the draw here...

Maybe there's just a square of tape AROUND THE INTERNET!
posted by ikahime at 11:17 AM on April 14, 2017 [15 favorites]


Came for Nessman; leaving with Buckeye Newshawk Award in my teeth.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:31 AM on April 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


Maybe the cats are going into the box so we will post pictures in our little look-boxes and the rest of us will flock to our little look-boxes to watch cats in tape-boxes?
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:31 AM on April 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


Maybe there's just a square of tape AROUND THE INTERNET!

Considering that basically all the things that make the internet work are squared... yes.

My kitty cats are also rebels and give me That Look which fellow humans of cats will recognize as the look of "oh human, it's so cute that you think you're intelligent, I just don't know how to say this..."
posted by fraula at 11:34 AM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm going to try this on Sky, the catlike dog. Not tomorrow, though, which will be disorienting enough with scary, confusing (yet also delicious & delightful!) weird Easter time things happening.
posted by taz at 11:44 AM on April 14, 2017


I just tried this with my cat. He is not impressed by, nor interested in, the box.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:49 AM on April 14, 2017


Last time I captured a feral cat for fixing I just put the cat carrier with a square of fleece in it out in the back yard with the door facing the sun. Voila! Fleece is the most potent cat attractor there is.
posted by Pembquist at 12:08 PM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Now I want to see what happens when you sneakily place a cucumber behind a cat in a tape box.
posted by ejs at 12:10 PM on April 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


So, our cat is irresistibly drawn to any lily-pad, like for example a piece of paper placed on the floor. I imagine this is the same principle. For people whose cats ignore the tape, do they like other kinds of lily-pad (i.e. it's an issue with the tape) or do they ignore other lily-pads too?
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:15 PM on April 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


Couldn't find any experiments with big cats and tape, but they do like boxes.
posted by AFABulous at 1:50 PM on April 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


Here's the Reddit collection. I wonder if there's a difference between squares and circles in terms of what percentage of cats will sit in them.
posted by WizardOfDocs at 3:01 PM on April 14, 2017


Yes! I have always had cats like LobsterMittens's, but I never thought to call the flat things they sit on "lily pads."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:28 PM on April 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm not screaming "DOUBLE," but I know the cat + tape thing has been posted here before. I know that because there's no other earthly reason why I would have this photo, taken in November 2014, in my Flickr photostream. I'm too lazy, but I think if you go back to Metafilter posts from November 2014 you will find that we have previously discussed the attractive properties of floor tape vis a vis cats.
posted by mudpuppie at 6:31 PM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: two pictures of a cat and some tape
posted by sylvanshine at 6:32 PM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


But when this went viral in 2014, people were creating round(ish) cat tape traps. These are rectangular cat tape traps.

It's totally different.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:41 PM on April 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


My cat did not go for this, but I blame myself, as I only have sticky tape in the house, which is hard to see on a hardwood floor. Clearly a trip to the store is in order.

He was also not interested in the sticky tape ball I made out of the used tape.
posted by janepanic at 7:06 PM on April 14, 2017


I put a new doormat with a funny message outside my front door and have noticed my cat stops and meows several times before entering and now I realize... it's the squared border on the doormat!!
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:31 PM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


My cat ignored the tape on the floor. She's a bit on the insecure side and does not normally sit/lie on the floor to begin with. She also doesn't put herself in boxes, bins, bags, baskets or the like. She will sit on "lily pads" that are on places she'd otherwise sit, like on the bed.
posted by drlith at 7:44 PM on April 14, 2017


Also, I feel like that social media has shifted the emphasis from "why does my cat do this weird thing?" to "why doesn't my cat do this weird thing (that every other normal cat apparently does)?"
posted by drlith at 7:45 PM on April 14, 2017 [3 favorites]




Hah! This is one old trick. Back in the olden days when there were newspapers, all you had to do was lay the paper on the floor and cat would be right on it. AND no sticky tape residue!
posted by a humble nudibranch at 2:57 AM on April 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


We've gotten causality wrong. A cat saw a tape square on the ground and went back to the cat elders with a crazy plan to "train the hoomans into laying tape squares down everywhere"

Now cats sit in squares, to make us create squares.
posted by Cat_Examiner at 8:35 AM on April 15, 2017


Attempt I: Triangle.

Cats did not approach triangle. Did not even look at it. Added text that I hoped would intrigue them and pique their curiosity. I apparently forgot that my cats can't read English.
posted by frimble at 9:49 AM on April 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


This place is not a place of honor.

No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.

Nothing valued is here.

This place is a
-- HEY, CAT! WE DIDN'T MARK OFF THE TEN THOUSAND YEAR NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY WITH TAPE SO YOU COULD JUST SIT THERE.
posted by Guy Smiley at 10:36 AM on April 15, 2017 [6 favorites]


I apparently forgot that my cats can't read English.

Well, that's really the whole basis of the nuclear warning project, isn't it? I mean, sure they could just etch pictures of dead people all over the place, but once the earth is overtaken by hyper-intelligent cats (some people suggest this has already happened) who regard humans as a nuisance species, that severity of that as a warning will change. They might think someone built a better mousepeople trap and go looking for the secret to keeping the hoomans from messing about in their toiletfields stealing their poop.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:46 AM on April 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


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