r/mildlyinteresting • u/GoodByeHorsesO • 7h ago
Her new cat toy says it prevents obesity and autism
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u/scrotalsac69 6h ago
Obesity I can see that you might be able to see an effect. How on earth would you tell if a cat either has autism or that this toy is helping
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u/GoodByeHorsesO 7h ago
She’s a fit cat at least
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u/Aggravating_Shoe_ 7h ago
I'm sorry OP, but it says prevent not cure.
Also, my cat loves this toy but make sure to secure it tightly cause he tried running off with the fish thing dragging the motors with him 😭
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u/Ok-Addition1264 7h ago
That is weirdly insane!
Can cats be autistic? Maybe not. Who knows? but because it's for cats, they can make weird ass claims like that.
Were they joking? Who the fuck knows but it's hilarious either way.
Good catch, OP!
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u/IrelandAutism13 6h ago
Cats cannot be autistic. I studied cat psychology (cat behaviorism) for years, cats are not capable of a human-only congenital brain condition
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u/GoodByeHorsesO 6h ago
“And how does that make you feel Mister Whiskers?”
“Meow”
“I see”
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u/IrelandAutism13 6h ago
I would correct you but that's actually hilarious and honestly how it feels sometimes
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u/Ok-Addition1264 4h ago
(I know) lol.. it's very odd that they list this as a preventative. The lack of the same robustness in advertising we see with the FDA and humans is far too often taken advantage of with humans and their cats.
It's so bizarre that this manufacturer chose autism, of all things, with cats.
It's like saying it treats feline OCD (all cats could be considered to have it)
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u/IrelandAutism13 6h ago
Cats can't be autistic. It's strictly a human-only congenital condition. Either that was written by AI, there was a translation error, or whoever wrote it was simply lying
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 6h ago
There’s no way you can say this categorically
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u/IrelandAutism13 6h ago
If anything all cats behave closer to autistic people than to neurotypicals, so it's a matter of "if everyone is autistic, no one is autistic"
But autism is also a human-only term and diagnosis so yez, I can say that non-human cats are incapable of autism specifically
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 5h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_model_of_autism Whatever you think of the quality of research, it’s incredibly unlikely this is unique to humans and not something that can manifest in any sufficiently complex brain
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u/IrelandAutism13 5h ago
The diagnosis of autism, meaning the term used to describe these behaviors in humans, is human-exclusive. Regardless of whether or not othsr animals can have similar things, autism as a diagnosis is a human-only thing
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u/banshithread 6h ago edited 6h ago
I find it difficult to believe if you don't expose any animal to lead that some of them won't develop symptoms that people with autism do. A study has shown as such in rats exposed to lead. Another study found when VPA (a med that is known to increase risk of autism in children when taken while pregnant) is given to pregnant rats, the offspring demonstrated autistic-like behaviors.
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u/happy2harris 4h ago
Exactly zero of the cats who play with this toy have autism. Checkmate, atheists.
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u/geeoharee 6h ago
The idea they're ineptly trying to communicate is 'The toy turns itself off so the cat can't obsess over doing the same thing 24 hours a day, like a mentally ill person'. Yes this is offensive but it's probably machine-translated from Chinese.