03 DecEpisode 182 | Don’t chase your cat around the house with the Christmas tree: On the TikTokers who are “traumatizing” their cats in order to spare their holiday decorations
Earlier this week, TikTok user @becs.richards posted a video of herself chasing her cat around her house while holding her Christmas tree like a bayonet; in the text that goes with the video, she explains that she saw a TikTok explaining that if you traumatize your cat with your Christmas tree before you put it up, the cat will leave the tree alone. The video and a few follow ups (showing that the cat hasn't attacked the tree) have gotten over thirty million views and four million likes. Annie meditates on the strange way that this example of punishment-based training -- billed as unvarnished traumatization -- is so funny and intriguing to the masses. Would a dog being traumatized get so many hundreds of thousands of "likes?" Beyond that, she ponders how weird it is that we expect cats to NOT want to interact with a tree in the house, and suggests some practical ways to keep pets from messing with holiday directions (spoiler alert: Get a menorah!).
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Mentioned in this episode:
The video by @becs.richards that has gotten 30 million views and 4 million likes in just a few days
Transcript:
Annie:
So, there’s these TikToks that have been going around. They’re of people in their homes with lovely Christmas music playing, and then you see a person holding their Christmas tree in their arms, like a bayonet, and running around, pointing it at their cats
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And these videos are captioned, “If you traumatize your cat with your tree before putting it up, they will leave it alone.” At least one of these videos posted by user becs.richards just four days ago already has nearly 30 million views and 4 million likes.
These videos in some cases are kind of funny. I mean, it's kind of funny to see a cat running around scared of a tree, something that we humans know will not hurt them. As much as I love cats and I don't want them to be fearful about the world we're asking them to live in, I admit that I sometimes laugh when a cat seems to think something is scary.
I am specifically thinking about the many hours I have spent watching videos of people putting large zucchinis next to their cats, terrifying the cats, because the cats don't really realize it's not a snake, and many cats are hardwired to naturally be scared of snakes.
And also, you know, Hey, yay for animal training being part of a meme, because careful listeners will know that I think more people should be paying attention to how awesome pet training can be and how much fun it can be in a different way that maybe isn't about running around making your cat fearful about the Christmas tree.
Now, I understand the problem that one might be trying to solve here, that problem being about pets and Christmas trees. And I'll talk a little bit more about maybe some tips as that stuff goes in a minute, but I wanna look at the larger picture of what's going on here, and also mention that essentially this is cat training using punishment. The captions are not talking in terms of training. They're just talking in terms of creating fear in the animal which will lead to – may lead to a behavior like leaving the tree alone. In fact, very clever.
But as with any kind of punishment or aversive, there are other ways in which you might not be doing the animal all the favors in the world, because is your cat going to be scared of the Christmas tree? Perhaps. But your cat also might start being a little bit scared of you because you're the person suddenly with this massive tree in the house, running around the living room, and what the fuck?
You also are, if you look at it in a larger context of, you know, we are two species of animals living together, one of these species did not choose to be in your home, in a living room at all, and has not too distant ancestors and perhaps many siblings and cousins and parents who might not be living in a home at all. And they for millennia have lived around trees.
Here, this animal in your home perhaps has never even seen a tree. And now, lo and behold, there is one in the living room with generations of programming in their brains being like, Hey, I gotta go check out this tree, perhaps. Totally natural, understandable thing that many cats might want to do if suddenly there's a fricking tree in the middle of their house.
Also understandable that you, as a person who has a tree in your house, does not want your cat to mess with your tree. But to me, like the answer is don't put a tree in your house if you think your animal isn't gonna be able to deal with that. And I know that this might seem like an extreme thing to many when I shouldn't have a Christmas tree, cause it's gonna scare my dog, or my cat is going to climb it.
You know, what we're asking is for them to understand that we are bringing this very large dead plant into the home and that we don't want them to interact with it. Could you do training to get your cat or dog – and you know, these videos are about cats, but if we're seeing videos about this with cats, it sure as hell is happening with dogs. I think it's just probably a lot more pathetic to see a dog become extremely fearful of a tree. And it's somehow funnier for us to see this happen to cats.
I don't know, actually, you know what, I don't think it's actually that funny. I know I said it was funny in the beginning and like I said, I have laughed at the zucchini cat videos, but it's really, it's not funny. And actually it's sad. I know also I said, you know, isn't it great that we're seeing animal training? I'm just rescinding everything I said, okay? [laughs]
I think it's – I don't know. It's sad that basically what we see here is people training their pets using fear, and the reaction is that that's funny and not terrible. I guess that's sad. Is it sad? I think it's sad.
I also think it's unfortunate if you have kids in your home, because I think you're essentially teaching your children that the holiday decorations are more important than your cat feeling safe and comfortable in your home. I think that children learn a lot about how to interact with others based on how we train our pets or traumatize them as the case may be.
And actually, interesting side note, I looked up at @becs.richards, the TikTok user who has gotten so many millions of views in the last few days. And she is actually, perhaps somewhat ironically, getting her masters at Utah State University in human development and family studies with a focus on parenting. And there's a TikTok video where she mentions a special interest in attachment parenting.
Anyway, kind of struck me as interesting, because I think that a lot of attachment parenting is about making your child feel and secure in order to encourage the likelihood that they are going to behave in the ways we want them to behave, like rooting them in safe and secure relationships in order to set a foundation for a good behavior, happiness, et cetera, later on.
But it's also not that surprising that someone who is studying human development maybe hasn't seen how that kind of, you know, let's make the people/animals in our care feel safe, could extend to non human animals.
But, you know, she has also posted a bunch of videos saying that her cat is fine and has not seemed to suffer from her efforts to make the cat scared of the tree, but that also the cat has not been bothering the tree. So I don't know whether that was because the cat was sufficiently traumatized, but has a very evolved ability to just get over things and is not showing other signs of stress, or maybe she's not recognizing the signs of stress or maybe the cat wasn't interested in the tree to begin with. It was just a ploy to get some views on TikTok.
I don't know the answers to all these questions, but I am guessing that these kinds of videos are encouraging other people to do similar stuff. And I think that's too bad.
Moral of the story is, I think you shouldn't run around chasing your pet with your tree in order to get them to leave the tree alone. I think you should put together a serious management plan if you are gonna have a tree. That might mean keeping a gate around it, not letting your dog in the room, have the room gated off or cat or whatever. I think there are a lot of management related things we can do to keep pets and trees separate from each other.
And of course, if you have a dog in particular, I'm thinking, who is gonna be fearful of the tree or a cat or whatever, you can always do counter conditioning. You can always work at rewarding your dog every time they look at the tree. If you're using a clicker, click when your dog looks at the tree at a safe distance, and you can go towards approaching it little by little.
You can encourage calm behaviors like lying down by the tree. You can practice like mat relaxation, relaxation protocol on your training mat, by the tree. So many things you do to get an animal to feel good about the tree. And so many things you can do as your architect of your dog's world using inexpensive tools like baby gates, which you can purchase on Amazon and have it delivered tomorrow. You can manage space in such a way to set up your dog for success.
But more than that, I just keep getting stuck on sort of, like I said, the bigger picture of isn't it sort of nuts that we have this one animal that we're asking to live in our home. And then we bring in this big dead plant that they're programmed to want to interact with. And we're saying like, don't, you dare go near this thing. It's weird, I think, and kind of cruel. And that's part of what I see when I see these videos.
Now, I understand these videos are more fun to watch, however, than videos of watching someone set up ex-pens and baby gates to keep the cat from the tree or someone doing counter conditioning. And that's why they're a thing.
And not to be anti-Christmas, but I think if it's something that your household really can't deal with safely, then maybe just don't have a tree? Don't give into this pagan ritual that was repurposed as some part of Christian tradition. I don't know. I don't know.
But you know what? This is one area – I grew up celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah. And this is one area, though, where I think the Jews really have it figured out, because we get a menorah, we put some candles in it. And you know how we keep our pets away from it? We light it on fire.
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Just to be clear, don't terrorize your cat with your Christmas tree. Of course, every cat is different. And some cats are gonna be totally unphased by the experience. But some cats out there are gonna be really stressed out about it. And that stress could lead to physical illness. It could lead your cat to actually be more inclined to want to attack the tree.
Fear can certainly lead to aggression, which could be focused on you or the tree or other animals in the house. And it could also just do not so great things for your relationship, as it's probably not gonna make your cat trust you a whole lot. I'm sure most people do many things, not on purpose, that freak out cats, like leave zucchinis on the floor. So maybe we shouldn't be going out of our way to freak them out.
And you know, it's a very different thing when an object is moving than when it's not moving. The tree held by you while you do laps around your house with it is a very different object than when it is standing in the corner. So, you know, it's possible your cat might develop a fear of you running around with a tree, but be fine when it is on the other side of the room, not moving, just like a door is one thing when it's closed than another thing when it's swinging open.
A leash means one thing when it's in your hand and another thing when it's hanging on a hook on the wall. A cat carrier might be no big deal when it's just sitting on the ground, but when you are walking towards your cat with it, that might mean something different.
In preparing for the episode I found a blog post on the website boredpanda.com called 40 genius people who found a way to protect their Christmas trees from asshole cats and dogs.
And what's interesting is that many of these photos with captions that made this list really show off ways that people are using smart management to keep their cats and dogs from the tree.
So you know, what I said earlier was maybe kind of boring, doesn't make for good videos. I'm being proven wrong here because I'd say something like half of these photos show management techniques, whether that is pens that have been constructed around trees or in one case there is someone who has put the tree in a dog crate. Like a vertical, on its side dog crate.
There is one example of a tree that has been completely wrapped in saran wrap. And then there are several people who have mounted their trees to the ceiling or put their trees in places where a dog or perhaps a cat would not be able to get to the tree. Like there's one tree that's shown here that is on top of someone's refrigerator.
There are a couple photos here where people have been sort of clever in keeping their pet away from the Christmas tree, by pairing the Christmas tree with something the pet clearly doesn't like. For example, number two on the list is a Christmas tree surrounded by vacuums. And it says our dog keeps eating ornaments. This is our solution.
And one interesting thing about this blog post which relates to this TikTok trend is there's no mention of any kind of animal training here. I think it would probably be news to most people that this is a kind of training that's happening here.
Except there is one post here, number five, that does offer an example of punishing the cat, in this case, for the very natural behavior of wanting to climb the tree. It says number five, every time he tries to climb the tree, we make him put on a Christmas outfit for 15 minutes. And the photo is of an orange cat laying on his side, dressed up like Santa. My guess is that this is not a very effective form of punishment, ‘cause the cat seems like he is pretty okay with his getup.
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