Why Do Cats pursuit Lasers?

The Allure of the Laser

Lasers are inherently stimulating to cats due to what they represent: fast-moving prey. simply because your cat doesn’t need to exerting for its food (unless you count all the trouble it takes to meow all morning until you refill its bowl), doesn’t mean that it’s not hardwired for the work 
As the dot of a laser darts round the room, your cat interprets it as alittle animal trying to run and conceal . As such, certain inherent feline behaviors begin , notably the innate desire to hunt, pounce, and kill the prey in question. the very fact that it’s merely a projection doesn’t matter considerably because your cat is working on auto-pilot, not on intellect.

How Cats See Lasers

There’s another factor at play here too when your cat chases a laser, and that’s the very fact that it simply looks appealing. to know why, it helps to possess a base understanding of how your cats’ eyes operate and the way they differ from human eyes.

The retina is one among the most structures of the attention . it's composed of two key sorts of cells: rods and cones. Rods affect low light vision and detecting movement, while cones help the attention see color. Human eyes have more cones than rods, which suggests we see the planet with tons of vibrancy. Cats, on the opposite hand, have more rods than cones, making them experts at learning even the slightest of movements.

What does this need to do with lasers? It means they’re pretty hard to ignore. the instant you switch a laser point on your cat goes to select it up in its sight , and if it hasn’t quite found out yet that it can’t actually eat that red dot (or if it knows it can’t but doesn’t care) then that’s all it'll fancy start its predatory cycle.

The Debate Over Cats and Lasers

It might be surprising to listen to that there’s some controversy over whether it’s an honest idea to tempt your cat with lasers, but the cat-laser debate is one that has been happening for a few time.

The main problem noted by cat enthusiasts who are anti-laser is that having your cat chase a laser may be a sort of teasing. Remember, your cat is stalking and pouncing thereon red dot because its brain is telling it to catch the food and kill it. The cat’s not doing it distinctly as a sort of play, albeit it’s having fun.

The laser is an unattainable target, and regardless of how great your cat’s hunting skills are it’s never getting to get to eat it and it’s never getting to round out its predatory cycle. Many cats find out the ruse and stop interacting with the laser. Others find it immensely frustrating and should start behaving badly as a result. Frustrated cats act call at but ideal ways, like by becoming destructive or aggressive. If you notice a connection between twiddling with your cat and a laser and bad behavior, it’s probably time to place the pointer away permanently .

To help make laser pointers more of a game and fewer of a tease, give your cat a treat or a physical toy right when you're finished playing. That way it’ll get the satisfaction of a “kill,” albeit it’s not of the laser itself.

Laser Pointer Safety Tips

Provided that your cat seems to truly enjoy chasing a laser and isn’t just caught in an endless loop of hunt-pounce-disappointment, there’s probably nothing to be worried about. Chasing a laser may be a fantastic way for your cat to urge some physical and mental exercise, and also lets it tap into its kitty instincts for a bit—something that indoor cats don’t get to try to to quite as often as they could wish to .

Of course, you ought to still confirm to follow proper safety tips to avoid harming your cat during play. Here are two big ones to notice .

Don’t shine the sunshine directly in your cat’s eyes. Even toy lasers emit an incredibly bright light, so you shouldn't shine it directly at your cat (or yourself!). If you do, you'll cause vision problems and/or eye injuries.

Provide your cat with many other toys. If the laser is your cat’s only outlet for play, it’s more likely that frustration will start to create up. confirm that it's access to tons of other objects for hunting and twiddling with , including catnip toys and wands.