In addition to dressing cats, some owners also wear shoes for cats. There is a very popular cartoon called "The Cat in Boots", which talks about a smart cat who is brave and invincible in boots and looks very handsome and free. There seems to be no objection to this matter. For example, the owner likes to be neat and some cats like to go out and run around. In order not to get dirty at home, the owner will put shoes on the cat. Sometimes the cat’s feet are injured. In order to heal, some owners will also choose to put shoes on the cat, but are cats suitable for wearing shoes? Some people stood up and said that cats can’t walk after putting on their shoes.
When we think about it carefully, it seems that we have never seen a cat wearing shoes before. There are many people selling dog clothes and shoes, but none of them are available for cats. So are cats really not suitable for wearing shoes? Hangzhou Zhangxu Animal Hospital conducted an experiment on the issue of cats wearing shoes.
The subject was an American shorthair cat named "Galaxy". He was one year old and had never worn shoes.
After putting on the cat "Galaxy", it just put it on the ground. It instantly became "petroleified" and almost lost its ability to walk. Even its coordination became extremely poor. When walking, it not only turned around, but also accidentally stepped on itself, and its movements were very funny. After 5 minutes, "Galaxy" still couldn't adapt.
Can the cat not walk because the shoes are not the right size? The experimenter wrapped the cat's claws in a towel and tried again. As a result, although the "Galaxy" became much more natural, it still danced around and kept shaking its legs, as if it wanted to get rid of the towel on its claws.
So why? Generally speaking, people mainly define the outer central space through visual auditory. You can dance and sing with your eyes closed, but you will stagger when walking and maybe you will fall. As for touch, people don’t seem to use it much, at most they just feel “where the wind comes from.” Judging from these videos, the cat seems to be different. It seems that it relies very much on mechanical sensations to perceive the location of the outer center space. This is also quite obvious, because the moon is dark and the wind is high in the middle of the night, and it feels like it can't even walk without mechanical means, let alone catch mice.
To analyze more specifically, what is "sticked" on these cats, which is not the same as "sticking" something. Although the cat's overall behavior is to stay away from the sticky direction, it cannot be analyzed specifically because it feels that the hair is glued (different vectors are different, and the directions are different), or the skin is subjected to a total pulling force (this is the same vector) and it goes away from this pulling force. Considering that the cat will walk lying on its back after sticking to adhesive, and the chest adhesive will walk leap on its back, the movement trend of the tape relative to the skin in these two situations is the opposite (pressing it on the back and pulling it down on the chest), but the behavioral trend of the cat trying to get rid of the tape is consistent. So we can summarize that cats want to stay away from an external thing that invades its self-center coordinate system. In addition to this reaction to shoes, cats will also be uncomfortable if they stick to other parts of their bodies.
The experimenter repeatedly glued the tape to himself many times. After reducing the stickiness of the tape, he put it on the cat. Sure enough, when the tape was applied to the abdomen, the cat walked on tiptoe and with its back arched; when the tape was applied to the left and right sides, the cat walked horizontally and in the opposite direction; when the tape was applied to the top of its head, the cat did not dare to move forward any further and was still retreating.
Cats behave very differently from humans. For example, if a fly is stuck on the body, people will basically think that it is "the body is stuck on the fly" rather than "the body is stuck on the world". Like the cats in the aforementioned reactions to foreign objects such as tape, shoes, etc., especially after tape is applied to the top of their heads and shoes on their feet, we can think that something is wrong with the outer center space, so that it wants to "retreat" or "cross over".
Therefore, we can draw a conclusion immediately that there is a certain limitation in the cat's perception of the external central space, which makes it unable to correctly distinguish the sources of influence on it in the external central space. When it feels an external force, cannot determine the source of the force, or cannot escape the influence of this force. Then it will think that there is something wrong with the entire outer center space, and then it will try to solve the problem by leaving the space. So we'll see such funny behavior.
Similarly, in pet hospitals, after bringing the cat with an Elizabethan circle, the cat will keep back and try to run out of the circle instead of scratching it. So after putting on the cats, they feel that something is wrong with the outer center space. It is not difficult to understand that they make strange actions in order to stay away from external things that invade the self-center coordinate system.
In addition, some researchers have found that the reasons for paws may also be the reason why cats don’t like to wear shoes. We know that cat meat pads are one of the sensory organs that maintain balance. When the meat pads are wrapped, the cat’s balance system will be affected. Usually, when a cat walks, it needs to stretch out its claws to grab the ground. When putting on shoes, the function of the claws will be lost. Every hair of a cat is connected to hair follicles, which is a sensory organ. As long as there is a slight interference, the cat will be alert, so the cat will no longer wear clothes.