Carly Fox: "Pregnant women can't live with cats."
This is a huge myth.
Please don't get rid of your cat if you are pregnant.
"When cats purr, it means they're happy."
This is definitely a myth.
Ann Hohenhaus: "Cats think their owner is their mother."
Fox: Obviously your cat doesn't
think that you're its mother.
I'm Dr. Carly Fox.
I'm an emergency and critical-care veterinarian
at the Animal Medical Center in New York City.
Hohenhaus: And I'm Dr. Ann Hohenhaus,
also at the Animal Medical Center,
but I'm an internal medicine and oncology specialist.
Fox: Today we're going to debunk some cat myths.
[meow]
"Cats love milk."
I mean, I think this is sort of an image
that has been put forth throughout our childhood,
like, in storybooks and in movies and on TV,
but unfortunately, cats, as they get older,
actually are lactose intolerant.
So their bodies actually can't even digest milk.
As kittens, they have an enzyme called lactase,
which helps them break down milk,
because they are supposed to be drinking
their mother's milk.
But as they get older, that enzyme,
which is usually very present, goes away.
And then they're unable to digest milk.
So if you feed milk to an older cat,
or really any cat after they've
been weaned from their mother,
they really can't digest it.
Even though they seem like
they're really enjoying themselves,
it actually can cause gastrointestinal upset.
Hohenhaus: You can go to the pet store, though,
and buy cat milk.
[laughs]
And the cat milk has two things
that make it special for cats.
One is it's lactose-free,
just like the lactose-free milk
you can buy in the grocery store.
But it also has extra taurine added to it.
And cats require taurine in their diet.
So it's just an extra source
of that amino acid special for cats.
Fox: I mean, who knew?
Hohenhaus: "Cats are nocturnal."
How can you be nocturnal when you
sleep 23 hours a day?
[laughs]
The typical cat sleeps 23 hours a day.
They wake up long enough to kill some prey,
eat that prey, and then go back to sleep
until the next time they're hungry.
Fox: They're actually crepuscular animals.
Hohenhaus: They're what? Fox: Crepuscular.
That means that they're active
during dusk and dawn,
which goes back to what you just said
about them hunting. So, that's how lions hunt.
They hunt in the dusk or the dawn,
where they can, you know,
see prey better, hunt, and kill,
and our domestic cats actually evolved from that.
So they're actually supposed to be
most active in the morning and in the evening,
but not necessarily in the middle of the night.
Though some cats obviously are.
Hohenhaus: Well, and they are most active in the morning.
Ask any cat owner. At 4 o'clock in the morning,
that cat's walking on your head
and running over the bed, trying to get you up,
because they don't have to hunt for breakfast.
They just have to get you up.
Fox: "Cats hate water."
Can't say that every cat hates water,
but, I mean, in my experience,
most cats definitely dislike water,
as in they don't like being bathed in water.
You're definitely not gonna see most cats
go for a swim.
I'd say most cats don't love water,
but when cats are feeling unkempt,
perhaps they do like water.
Hohenhaus: "Cats think their owner is their mother."
[laughs]
I think that they just see you
as a source of food and comfort
and cleanliness and a safe place to live.
Fox: Yeah, obviously your cat doesn't
think that you're its mother,
but they definitely think that you're
its caretaker and they need you,
but, you know,
another person could probably fill in that job
just as easily for your cat, honestly,
so I don't think that cats
think that you're their mother.
But some people definitely think that.
"Pregnant women can't live with cats."
This is a huge myth.
Please don't get rid of your cat if you are pregnant.
Cats can sometimes be infected with a parasite
called toxoplasmosis,
which can be shed in your cat's feces.
If picked up by a pregnant woman,
this parasite can sometimes
cause birth defects or miscarriage,
and that's obviously something we would want to avoid.
Cleaning the litter box daily will help with this.
You definitely don't want to
leave the litter box to go for more than one day
because that can increase infection.
If you do need to clean the litter box,
you should just wear gloves.
So the best thing that you can do
is have someone clean the litter box for you,
which is also just great.
Who wants to clean their litter box?
It's a break for nine months.
Hohenhaus: So, if you're concerned about your health
or your cat's health during your pregnancy,
be sure to bring up the topic with both
your veterinarian and your obstetrician.
"Cats can see in complete darkness."
Cats have great night vision.
They have, like, a mirror in the back of their eye.
And you know that from taking photos of your cat
because you see that yellow-green
reflection in the camera,
and that's this mirror
that's in the back of the cat's eye
that helps to reflect light around
to improve their night vision.
And that reflector area is called the tapetum.
Fox: Cats really can't see in complete darkness.
They still need a little bit of light in their eye
for it to bounce back and forth within the eye
off the tapetum, so complete darkness
they cannot see in, but a lot of darkness
with a little bit of light,
they actually can see.
Hohenhaus: "Human food is bad for cats."
We don't recommend feeding a human diet to cats,
because it doesn't meet their nutritional needs.
Cats are obligate carnivores,
and it means they need to eat meat.
So your diet is not appropriate for cats.
Fox: "Black cats are bad luck."
I mean, this is obviously a huge myth.
Hohenhaus: I think that black cats
are bad luck for themselves,
because they don't get adopted from a shelter
as readily as a pretty gray cat
or a flashy tricolor cat.
So the bad luck is actually for the cat,
not for you.
"Cats don't love people or babies."
My mother was so worried about this
when I was having a baby, because I had these cats.
And she said, "Those cats are gonna climb in the crib
and suffocate my grandson."
Nothing like that happened.
Babies are unpredictable,
and they smell different than people,
and they make different movements than people,
and they have stinky diapers.
So I think this actually might partly be true.
It's not that they don't like babies.
It's that they're different than
the people they're used to.
Fox: "Cats always land on their feet."
Well, cats do have an excellent righting reflex,
meaning that a lot of the times
they actually do land on their feet,
and that has to do with their anatomy
and their vestibular system.
However, unfortunately, I'm an emergency doctor,
I live in New York City. I see many, many,
many cats not land on their feet.
Definitely don't think that your cat
will just be fine if it unfortunately
falls out of your third-story window
or even from your top of your refrigerator.
Hohenhaus: And when they fall,
they'll land on their chin,
and they often fracture their wrists,
and then if they belly flop,
as opposed to land on their feet,
they'll also get air in their lungs
or around their lungs
because their lungs get a little
tear in it and start leaking.
So these injuries are severe
and life-threatening for cats.
So the answer is get screens
or don't open your windows.
"Cats and dogs don't get along."
I don't have any idea where this would have come from.
There are plenty of houses and households
in the United States where there are both dogs and cats
and they're perfectly fine.
Just like some people don't get along,
sometimes a dog and cat don't get along,
but sometimes you have two dogs and they don't get along
or two cats and they don't get along.
So I think this is more about the personality
of your dog and your cat
than it is that they can't get along.
They're not gonna be the next YouTube sensation,
but I guess they
maintain a working relationship.
Hohenhaus: Yeah, yeah, that's good.
A working relationship.
We have to work together to be good pets.
Fox: Yeah. Let's do that.
"When cats purr, it means they're happy."
This is definitely a myth,
and I can tell you I've been scratched
by many a purring cat.
You know, I think purring is oftentimes
associated with pleasure in cats;
however, sometimes cats can purr for other reasons,
like they're very nervous,
or it's a warning actually,
or they're hungry,
not necessarily that they're happy.
"One human year equals seven cat years."
This is definitely, definitely a myth.
I think this is something we more associate with dogs,
but if you apply it to cats,
I think it's even more of a myth.
Hohenhaus: Well, and if you look at it on the
reverse end of the lifespan,
a cat can have kittens when it's 6 months old.
6-month-old cat would be 3.5 years in human age,
and clearly no 3.5-year-old children are
having babies of their own. Fox: I hope not.
Hohenhaus: So, it doesn't work in cats, no.
Fox: Today we debunked some cat myths.
There is a little bit of truth
to some of these myths that we talked about today,
and I think that's very fitting,
since cats are these very
particular, special animals
that are a bit of, like, a mixed bag,
just like these myths.
Hohenhaus: My son's first words were "meow."
[laughing]
Producer: That's crazy.
Hohenhaus: He would look at the cat and go "meow."
Fox: That's cute, really?
[laughing]