Cat people know that cats make their own rules. They will pretty much consider themselves to be your equal. And considering they barely need you for much, that’s kind of a fair assumption. Cats do what they want and go where they want, so it’s fair to assume that every surface of your home has been touched by a cat’s butthole. But is that actually true?
Four years ago, a homeschooled sixth grader named Kaeden Henry sought out the truth. For his sixth-grade science project, he dared to ask: “Does Your Cat’s Butthole Touch All the Surfaces In Your Home?” — and came up with a scientific way to prove it.
His mother, Kerry Hyde, reportedly has a PhD in animal behavior with a focus in feline behavior, according to Upworthy, so he was uniquely positioned to really tackle this experiment head-on.
After applying nontoxic lipstick to their buttholes, the trained cats were commanded to sit on various surfaces. They tested both hard and soft surfaces with long/medium-haired cats and short-haired cats.
“Long and medium-haired cats’ buttholes made NO contact with soft or hard surfaces at all,” shared Hyde of Henry’s findings. “Short-haired cats made NO contact on hard surfaces. But we did see evidence of a slight smear on the soft bedding surface.”
What short-haired cat owners can take away from this experiment is that their soft surfaces — such as bedding, pillows, and piles of laundry — may be exposed to cat buttholes regularly, and they don’t have to worry as much about cats climbing on the counters.
“This is probably the most useful information I’ve learned from a science fair project,” wrote a supportive follower on Facebook.
