It’s walking cats that is truly problematic.
Feel free to construct your own similes. (Via Cynical-C.)
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Cosmic Variance is a group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists:
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February 25th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
With the LHC supposedly starting (today? tomorrow?), it is obviously time for http://icanhazlargehadroncollider.com/
February 25th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
HEY! DO NOT WANT! I haz teh monoplee on kitteh videoz on science wbsytes.
February 25th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Sorry, Jerry. We were featuring kitties back when WEIT was just a gleam in the blogger’s eye. Heck, our cat had a blog before she passed away. We’re talking years of tradition here.
February 25th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
O noes, I bin pwned by phisiks kitteh! Sry bout yer kitteh, srsly.
February 25th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
“No longer hanging in there”
February 25th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Poor cat!
Claire
February 25th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Well, he/she handles the leash better than Pinky…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinky_the_Cat
And, marc, thanks for the link! LAWLZ!
February 25th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Maybe a low power cattle prod would get the cat off its lazy *#@&. Or, maybe it’s time for some “feline fricassee”! (LMAOROF)
February 25th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
[...] 2010 Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates.Via Cosmic Variance, I had my morning brightened with this video of an attempt to walk a [...]
February 26th, 2010 at 5:53 am
February 26th, 2010 at 7:04 am
Love the video. It’s a good example of how cat’s can violate the laws of physics by changing density and/or volume to avoid doing things they don’ t want to do. (Ever try and pick up a normally 5lb cat who wants to stay put only to find it somehow weighs around 20lbs?)
My oldest brother used to have a sheparding dog (a Briard, iirc); that dog was quite good at herding their cat. When the cat got tired of the game she’d hop up on some high piece of furniture. Funniest thing ever to watch.
February 26th, 2010 at 9:11 am
I’ve read that sheepdogs will herd your kids, too (the human variety, not the caprine). Maybe writers can have children if they have a collie.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Our ferret wasn’t too hard walking. Out. When we were supposed to return home, he became a conscientious objector.
Only walked my cat a coupla times to ensure he new the area – now he runs around on his own. Neighbours cat follows her to work, though.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
I saw someone walking a Siamese cat down the street in Bolton (a UK town) a few years ago on a lead, and the cat seemed to be doing fine until, as it seemed, he or she spotted me. Perhaps I was staring too intently, fascinated by the sight, but the cat seemed to lose its nerve and freeze.
Some varieties of cats can be taken for walkies; but it doesn’t come naturally and, as my experience showed, they are easily spooked.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
This is why I love cats. If they don’t want to do something, they won’t do it.
February 27th, 2010 at 3:06 am
[...] Laws of physics broken! Sean Carroll shows that cats can change their density when forced to do walkies. This entry was written by whyevolutionistrue and posted on February 27, 2010 at 5:06 am and [...]
February 27th, 2010 at 11:42 am
We have a cat who loves to go for walkies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK3dS-gp62Y
February 28th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
I discovered accidentally some years ago that cats are extremely sensitive to things attached to them in terms of balance; based on my past experience, I’d say that the cat in the video hasn’t been properly acclimated to the harness yet.
The harness is a restrictive, heavy thing (even if it seems light to us.) The cats I’ve had experience with generally take 15-30 minutes before they get used to something like a harness, and until they’re comfortable with it they’ll often just collapse back to the floor instead of try to walk with it on.
Just like the cat in the video.
February 28th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Sean, this video was hard to watch. I don’t know the context and I’m not a veterinarian, but I wonder if the cat is feeling pain when putting weight on its hind legs – possibly because of impacted anal glands, a back problem, constipation, urinary tract problems, or kidney disease — all common with cats.
I had two long-lived cats whose final illnesses increasingly impaired their ability to use their back ends for any of the normal functions.
We missed you at the last KICP/planetarium/cosmology weekend in ’07.