The love that dare not speak its name

September 18, 2015 6:16 PM

Cat & Snail

The Basket Cat Blog specializes in stuff on cats

posted by Going To Maine (23 comments total)

Wow. The white cat seems all blissed out, possibly high. The snail is surprisingly curious - I've never seen anything like that before, so cool!
posted by bunderful at 6:34 PM on September 18, 2015

I guess snails can get toxoplasmosis too, huh?
posted by lollusc at 6:37 PM on September 18, 2015 [8 favorites]

yeah i saw this channel a few days ago, i got all chill
posted by growabrain at 6:40 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Japanese cats seem to be very relaxed, is that a selective breeding thing?
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 7:10 PM on September 18, 2015

I was waiting for the cat to bite off the snail's head for the entire vid (spoiler: this does not happen).

I do love how chill Shironeko is but I do feel his owner sometimes goes too far.
posted by longdaysjourney at 7:36 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

No - that's about the right amount.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 8:31 PM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

That was much cuter than it had any right to be. I was kind of relieved when the chill cat moved its paw juuuuuuuust as the curious cat seemed to be ready to take a big old chomp out of the snail.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:47 PM on September 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

Dude. Dude. You've got snails.
No man, chill. I'm raising escargot.
Really? Can I try one?
Idiot, wait for the garlic and butter.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:58 PM on September 18, 2015 [9 favorites]

Now I want a snail in neko atsume.
posted by furtive at 9:10 PM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

That was surprisingly relaxing. And yes, paw stage right just in time.
posted by Thella at 2:19 AM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

My cat almost jumped through the screen to eat the snail herself. Those are some chill cats.
posted by xingcat at 6:25 AM on September 19, 2015

Does anyone have the zoological explanation of why all of these cute animals are actually in great distress?
posted by vogon_poet at 6:55 AM on September 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Does anyone have the zoological explanation of why all of these cute animals are actually in great distress?

Well, the cat was clearly sniffing the snail to decide whether or not it's edible, so this is not a case of "two unlikely animals become ~friends~". The cat even took a couple very light nibbles (thus the snail retracts its antennae) before the white cat pulled away.
posted by picklenickle at 7:43 AM on September 19, 2015

Just watched this with four children aged 8 to 14, and toward the end when it looked like the cat was going to eat the snail they started screaming in genuine fear and horror.

That was a very pretty snail.
posted by not that girl at 8:31 AM on September 19, 2015

The white cat has an orange tail!
I'm not a fan of cats, but that was a very pretty cat.
posted by sweetmarie at 9:23 AM on September 19, 2015

This is a celebrity cat, btw - for folks who enjoy him as much as I do, you can have more. ShiroNekoShiro is the channel to follow.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:35 AM on September 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is a celebrity cat, btw

I thought I recognized one of them as the cats who wear ramen cups on their heads.
posted by tommasz at 9:53 AM on September 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Is it just me or did that snail seem to enjoy interacting with the cat? It was reaching out its neck toward it.
posted by nangsta at 10:30 AM on September 19, 2015

I think that's an artifact of the cat’s nose being moist, but I like the idea.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:56 AM on September 19, 2015

I can't help but think of Patricia Highsmith's story, The Snail Watcher. Let's just hope no one laid eggs nearby.....
posted by TenaciousB at 11:03 AM on September 19, 2015

My guess is that this is a fortuitous result of experimenting with getting the cats trippin' balls on catnip and then introducing various things while recording video the whole time. "Oh look, there's a snail on that plant. I'll just put it on the cat's paw and we'll see what happens there..."
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:17 AM on September 19, 2015

There's a very similar video with a frog, but there is less attraction.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:36 PM on September 19, 2015

Shiro! I thought he would be pretty well-known here on the blue. He's not high, that's his default look. The curious kitty is Kuro, very likely his son, with an outdoor kitty Nora. Here's a pic of the family.

You can see from this video that Kuro gets his coloration from Nora and his banding from Shiro. Subscribe to daily youtube videos of Shiro and his gang here. Knowledge of the Japanese language not required.
posted by Alnedra at 1:00 AM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]