Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/12/17/someone-will-be-sent-to-the-ho.html
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In all fairness the tin foil was necessary to block the killer psychic waves emitted by an alien squid.
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It is endlessly amusing to watch people be mean to their cats.
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Hey kitty!, the dog did it!
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Parkour Cat would not be foiled.
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is it really mean? it did provide a mental challenge to an otherwise boring indoor cat environment. OK the cat looks slightly annoyed at the end but isn’t that the default cat-state?
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Couple of years ago we had a problem with our new cat jumping on the kitchen counter. I read that if you put foil on the counter, they’ll jump up, it will make a noise, scare them, and solve the problem. So I tried it. I came out the next morning to find the cat laying on the foil.
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I bet this is an evolutionary response that cats have developed to become better hunters. The innate aversion to stepping on things that make noise undoubtedly helps them stalk twitchy rodents and flighty birds.
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Plus there’s an upside-down cat glaring up at them.
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I would like to see this experiment repeated with pre-krinkled foil so EVERY step has substantially more noise and texture…
It’s the only way to really test… 
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I’m going to try this tonight with my Dear Wife.
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The cat torture element didn’t bother me, I routinely tease cats and don’t feel bad about it. But those captions are pretty torturous.
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And the music.
basically just a cat being puzzled for about a minute, then slowly walking across the foil.
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When I was growing up I found a system of teaching my mother’s cat to stay off the counters that actually worked:
There were a handful of corks stored in the living room. If I saw him on the counter I quietly picked up the corks, then stepped into the kitchen with a loud stomp, throwing the corks at him. Note that one cork was ineffective, the lesson came not from hitting him with a cork (which I rarely did anyway), but from the spread of corks coming at him–he couldn’t figure out how to evade. He would just cringe until they had landed. The stomp was to get his attention so he would look and see the incoming corks.
A handful of newspaper was also effective even though it never actually reached him–it had to be loose, the objective was not a successful throw, but the paper spreading out and making a racket in the process. The corks took no preparation and were easier to pick up afterwards and I soon switched.
It took occasional reinforcement and the lesson faded once I went off to college.
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You really have a soft place in your heart for me, thank you…
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Experiment FAIL. The premise assumes that cats don’t like the feel of foil, but this cat is far more concerned with the visual. He doesn’t pick up his feet as if he doesn’t like how it feels.
But he does stare at the reflective quality a lot.
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Reckon the next step is to get Big Cat Rescue on this.
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So, what you are saying is the cat foiled your plan?
(I can’t believe people around here left that out there.)
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