Re: Abelard Update


"Sherry" <sriddles@xxxxxxx> wrote

I don't get how everyone seems to think a cat is going to touch one
paw on an electric wire, and suddenly remove it go "Duh! I don't think
I'll do that again." Watch a cat climb a fence sometime, and see what
happens at the top. They're going to scramble, and panic, and probably
end up on the other side of the fence.

I understand your sentiments. I would ask how many cats you have witnessed
doing this. Dan has described his own experience, and I have seen firsthand
how a breeder of small dogs used electrified wire to stop the dogs trying to
get out of a yard surrounded by a very low fence. The dogs simply will not
go nearer than several inches from the fence. They don't understand
electricity, all they know is the fence "bites" if touched. I've seen horses
react the same way. Even young foals learn very quickly to avoid the
electrictrified fence, and horses are as "reactionary" as cats if not more
so.

You need to picture the cat climbing up a wire fence in slow motion to
understand how the mechanism works. The cat is putting one paw ahead of
(higher than) the other as it climbs, meanwhile it is focused on the goal
(the top of the fence). We all know that cats do not notice objects that are
right under their noses, rather their focus is farther off. Therefore when
the cat has reached the electrified wire about six inches from the top of
the fence and the next step is to cross that point, and it reaches upward to
grab a higher spot on the fence, its paw/leg must of necessity touch the
electrified wire, which then "bites" the cat's paw/leg, and the paw/leg is
immediately jerked backward - i.e., back down to the previous stage of the
climb.

At this point it would be helpful to have had the experience of touching an
electrified wire and the knowledge that the instinctive response to doing so
is to instantaneously withdraw one's hand - or in the case of an animal,
whatever body part has either inadvertently or in ignorance touched an
electrified wire - and most definitely *not* go forward or further *into*
the object that delivered the "bite".

Should the cat make a second attempt to continue to the top of the fence, it
will again be "bitten" by the wire, with the cat's face close enough to the
very thin wire that it does not actually see the wire and thus cannot make
the connection between the wire and being "bitten" and thus cannot learn to
climb over the fence without touching the wire at all. Even if the cat could
make that mental connection, it would still be incapable of climbing the
fence without touching the wire. Therefore the cat eventually will "give up"
on the prospect of getting over the fence, just as the horse or cow or goat
or dog or whatever learns to avoid contact with the fence.



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Abelard Update
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  • Re: Abelard Update
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    (rec.pets.cats.anecdotes)
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