Why You Shouldn’t Let Your Cat Hunt Everything It Sees, According to a Vet
· Vice
Cats will chase almost anything that moves across a floor, so it’s easy to assume they keep a house free of spiders. Anyone who’s lived with one knows better. The cat might pounce and eat it like a snack, or it might watch a spider stroll right past its face and not even bother getting up. So, which ones are known to be trusty eight-legged killers?
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U.S. Google searches for “cats and spiders” jumped 123% in the past month, according to pet-sitting platform TrustedHousesitters, and TikTok is full of cats batting at house spiders. Dr. Stevie, a veterinarian who spoke with the platform, said Bengals and Siamese are known for chasing anything that moves, but really, it’s not about the breed. “Personality, age, health and experience are more influential than breed alone,” she said, “so any cat could be an enthusiastic spider hunter, or completely uninterested.”
Even the enthusiastic ones shouldn’t replace actual pest control, though. Most house spiders spend their time tucked into cracks and behind furniture, nowhere near a cat. Dr. Stevie said cats usually react to spiders once they move into view instead of actively hunting them down, so they might catch the occasional unlucky one while the rest of the population carries on.
Letting Your Cat Hunt Spiders Can Be Riskier Than You Think
The bigger issue is that some spiders can seriously hurt your cat. According to the Pet Poison Helpline, cats are especially sensitive to black widow venom, and a bite can be fatal. The venom can begin affecting them within minutes. Black widows live throughout the contiguous U.S., and younger spiders can be brown or beige instead of the glossy black most people expect.
Cats can also keep swatting at a spider after they’ve already been bitten, which raises the chance of multiple bites. Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald of VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital told Denver Life that symptoms from a black widow bite can appear within 30 to 60 minutes, and some cats howl from the pain. Brown recluse bites can take much longer to become noticeable, sometimes several days.
If your cat seems sick after tangling with a spider, Dr. Stevie recommends calling a vet or emergency clinic. If you can do it safely, take a photo of the spider instead of trying to pick it up or catch it.
Avoiding the encounter in the first place is obviously preferable. Dr. Stevie recommends clearing out webs and giving cats something else to chase. Another study of 355 cats found that five to ten minutes of daily play with a feather wand reduced the number of animals they brought home by 25%.
So yeah, your cat might kill the occasional spider. It’s just probably better if that’s not the household job you’re counting on them to do.
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