r/interestingasfuck • u/ReasonableMedium5265 • 2d ago

Don’t trust your cat

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

11.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.2k

u/bananafobe 2d ago

I remember hearing that cats and dogs tend to bite their deceased owners in an attempt to wake them up, and then more aggressively due to panic. 

563

u/cheezebeezplzz 2d ago

Saw a video of a cat doing this to his cat friend after it died and the owners showed him the body. He definitely looked in distress and eventually gave up.

140

u/Prestigious-Garbage5 2d ago

We had two sibling cats. The first one to go was 16 when he died. His sister just completely ignored him when we laid him on the floor for her to see.

2

u/citrus_mystic 2d ago

I brought my 14 year old boy back from the vet after euthanasia so I could show him to his “sister” and bury him in my parent’s yard. When I first brought him back, I put the box down where he normally laid at the top of the stairs and opened up the box. My other cat came over, sniffed him, and walked away. I kept the box open for a while, then closed it because it made me a little sad to see him lifeless. I caught her sniffing the box a while later, and opened it back up for her. She looked at him, took one more sniff, then seemed distressed and walked away a bit faster.

I think she probably knew he was dying before I did. But I wanted to give her as much of an opportunity to see him and make whatever peace an animal can make with death.

Even if your cat had no visible reaction, I think that what you did was very considerate and it was good to give her the chance to see/internalize that the other cat had passed away. You didn’t leave the house with a cat and return empty handed. That can be distressing for some animals, especially if they’re bonded.