Place your cat in front of the screen

June 28, 2016 2:56 PM

Cat Game: Mouse Hunt (SLYT)
posted by Jacqueline (21 comments total)

Yeah maybe I should have added that it's helpful to first cover your keyboard with something hard if you're on a laptop. My cat somehow totally screwed up a bunch of my settings while she was playing the "game."
posted by Jacqueline at 3:06 PM on June 28, 2016

This is really interllkbpi9p09hho,kyu;p8 dft;km f;6

Sorry, moving the cat now so I can t.,h as9l sbhk

CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED
posted by radwolf76 at 3:13 PM on June 28, 2016 [11 favorites]

Is it just me, or has Netflix gotten so much worse lately?
posted by mazola at 3:21 PM on June 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Megatron is kinda interested but the constant cat meows coming from the video is disturbing her. Works better without sound.

If you want the cat equivalent of putting on a cartoon to get the kids out of your hair for an hour, check out Paul Dinning's Ultimate Videos for Cats. Its about the only way I can get Megatron to leave me alone when I work from home.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:27 PM on June 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Herbie cared a little bit but not a lot.

We like Winter birds a lot.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:30 PM on June 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

The music sounds like 70s porn soundtrack to me. Now listen to it again and see if you think those are cat meows. Huh.
posted by janey47 at 4:36 PM on June 28, 2016

My cats adored this video in the past winter.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 4:46 PM on June 28, 2016

My cat just ran up my credit card using mechanical turk for outsourcing the pursuit to cats in countries with cheaper labor costs.
posted by srboisvert at 4:53 PM on June 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

We make our software easier to use with a manual that you can view two different ways: you can view it on your computer, and you can print it.
posted by atomicmedia at 5:24 PM on June 28, 2016

MiltonRandKalman: If you want the cat equivalent of putting on a cartoon to get the kids out of your hair for an hour, check out Paul Dinning's Ultimate Videos for Cats. Its about the only way I can get Megatron to leave me alone when I work from home.

My cat loves these videos!! She always runs behind the screen to see where the squirrel went and gets really confused when there's nothing there.
posted by Arbac at 5:31 PM on June 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

I put Mouse for Cats on my iPad, and my cat goes bananas over it.

I might give a video a try, too. Would him smacking the screen with his paws pause/stop the video?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:45 PM on June 28, 2016

INSERT CAT
posted by indubitable at 7:00 PM on June 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yorvit would happily watch this for hours, but he also feels that way about skateboard videos. Roswell says it needs more squeaking.
posted by gingerbeer at 7:55 PM on June 28, 2016

Goddamn my cat misses the CNN ticker...
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:55 PM on June 28, 2016

My cat's ambitions have grown. The mouse and squirrel vids don't interest her in the least, but she is rapt watching the dragons in GOT.
posted by Steakfrites at 10:40 PM on June 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Finally got my ipad back. Santa needs to bring the kitties their own. Gawd, when I was a kid it was one computer for the whole family, now it's one per kid cat.
posted by kitten magic at 4:38 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Serious question- Do cats attack the monitor, or just watch? Is any damage done to the screen?
I remember my niece's dog had to be physically restrained from destroying the TV whenever another animal appeared there.
posted by MtDewd at 6:52 AM on June 29, 2016

Back in the day (when I actually had time to play video games) my Bengal got seriously, seriously into a Capcom PS2 survival horror game called Haunting Ground.

You play as a young girl who's trapped in a creepy gothic castle, and early on you rescue a white German Shepherd named Hewie and the two of you team up to escape. You yourself have practically no useful skills. You are seriously reliant on Hewie to distract or fight enemies, to go places you can't get to and bring back things you need, etc. So you spend a lot of time interacting with Hewie, encouraging behaviors you want and discouraging those that don't help, etc. (Don't fuck with da Hewie...)

My Bengal was totally all about Hewie. Whenever I was playing that game, he would sit on the corner of the coffee table closest to the screen and watch Hewie like a hawk. Sometimes he would try to figure out how to get into Hewie's world, either reaching out to touch the screen or going behind the TV to see what was there. But mostly he just watched his hero with all the devotion of a Red Sox fan. It was kind of funny, and kind of weird.
posted by Naberius at 7:55 AM on June 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Serious question- Do cats attack the monitor, or just watch? Is any damage done to the screen?

My cat attacks the screen but so far hasn't damaged it. She did step on a bunch of keys and somehow changed some settings, though, so now I put something hard over my laptop's keyboard before I play the video for her.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:26 AM on June 29, 2016

Please don't stimulate your pet's prey drive without the occasional physical reward.

The lack of fulfillment can lead to psychological problems.

If you do the laser pointer thing, hide real treats and guide the dot to the treat. If you do the iPad thing, maybe try an interactive game rather than a video.
posted by pmg at 1:08 AM on June 30, 2016

Huh, that would explain why our dogs would eventually snatch up dirty socks and carry them around after they'd been chasing a laser pointer. They must have decided that the smelly socks were the "prey" that they had "hunted" and "killed."
posted by Jacqueline at 7:56 PM on July 1, 2016