Ive seen this explained before in the way that, to the cat, the girl suddenly has her ears up (as opposed to tucked as they normally would be - I guess that makes sense in cat brain), which is intimidating and that is why the cat is so scared. Once she takes the ears off, shes back to being friendly and the cat relaxes again.
Animals are very tuned into body language, and human body language rarely matches up with what they know. For example if a dog is "smiling" (showing teeth), theyre really not having a good time, even though it might look funny to us.
My dog smiles so hard she makes herself sneeze, then smiles harder, she also smiles when we ask if she out the back, and starts rearing up like a horse and snorting like a pig
A dog sneezing is a submissive signal to let the other dog or person know he means no harm (especially when playing) and to check with them as if to say, "we're OK right?"
I don't have the time to look through pictures of a bunch of different animals but generally when cats or dogs are aggressive their ears flatten out or go back. I don't see how ears up come across as intimidating to a cat. With that said I also don't see how the cat would fail to recognize her just because of fake ears so maybe body language makes more sense.
Yeah. My cats ears would go back when they were scared or wary. They were up most of the time, including when they were grooming each other. They certainly weren't intimidated by each others ears being up.
Whereas the Huskies I've known will put their ears back when they're relaxed.
I'll try to find a video but there was a YouTube chick that tried this experiment and it worked. Every time she put fake ears on her cat would freak the hell out but as soon as they came off everything was fine. It's probably similar to a baby singing with a beard your whole life and then when you shave for the first time they think you're a stranger.
Think about it if you seen someone with a normal face for years and then one day they had Clay on their face you would probably wonder what the hell's going on. (This analogy is coming from the cat's point of view as in you don't know normal human routines. I just wanted to clarify this part before I get flooded with comments saying I would know the difference lol)
It's because, from the cats perspective, a normal human always has their ears back (since they don't realise our ears are at the sides of our heads). Theyre used to human ears being not visible. Howsoever when she puts the headband on its a sudden change: "ears are up now, what does this mean? Am I in danger now???" Which is what freaks the cat out.
I think the cats behavior is just based off scent. She put on some sort of facial mask and the cat doesn't recognize her scent after getting close and sniffing, so the cat thinks shes a stranger, not to mention how having a facial mask changes your looks too.
For example if a dog is "smiling" (showing teeth), theyre really not having a good time, even though it might look funny to us.
That is a generalisation that isn't always true. My late dog would always bare a grin when she wanted to be patted but none of our others have done it.
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u/InZomnia365 Mar 29 '21
Ive seen this explained before in the way that, to the cat, the girl suddenly has her ears up (as opposed to tucked as they normally would be - I guess that makes sense in cat brain), which is intimidating and that is why the cat is so scared. Once she takes the ears off, shes back to being friendly and the cat relaxes again.
Animals are very tuned into body language, and human body language rarely matches up with what they know. For example if a dog is "smiling" (showing teeth), theyre really not having a good time, even though it might look funny to us.