Veterinary Training Guide Hilariously Warns ‘Don’t Fight a Cat’

Don’t mess with cats.

Twitter users were highly amused by a viral post on Sunday with a snippet of veterinary tech advice when treating cats, which ultimately recommends “not fighting” the animal.

User @LitMoose, who just goes by the name Moose on the platform, shared a piece of “real advice from a veterinary training.” The excerpt discusses how to care for cats not quite willing to trust a vet.

“The cat is faster and has sharper teeth and nails than you do,” the advice reads. “It has ‘no code of ethics’ or considerations for its own future.”

Above all, it emphasized: “In a fair fight it will win.”

In cases dealing with highly aggressive cats, the text encourages three things: “Don’t fight a cat. Use your brain. Use drugs.”

Moose told Newsweek that though she is no longer a veterinary technician, she still does animal volunteer work. She came across the image taken from a veterinary training textbook in a “private group that shares humorous STEM advice.”

“The majority are medical, but there are veterinary gems,” she said. “It was too good not to share.”

“Anyone who has worked with feral cats in particular [but really cats in general] will look at that slide and go ‘yes, this is accurate,'” she joked.

Commenters could not get enough of the hilarious advice. “Tbh, [it’s] not a fair fight if the cat is on drugs is it?” user @kapartilius joked. User @LAMUNRO2 chimed in with a witty comic, writing, “Are we using the drugs on ourselves or in the cats?”

After one user wildly suggested using ketamine to subdue feral felines, Moose reminded followers that the best advice is always to “consult your vet beforehand.”

Some shared their own personal experiences with particularly aggressive cats. “Wanted to be a vet and did work experience as a kid,” user @TheStoneyCrow reflected. “We had a particularly vicious moggie and the vet tied down all four of its limbs with bandages to prevent it attacking him. That was nothing compared to the feral cat that was brought in. That was scary!”

Moose also remembered her days interacting with feral cats. “Every Monday we used to do TNR [Trap-Neuter-Release] on 100 feral cats. I have been through the fires and my arms are striped with scars,” she added in the thread.

User @LiselleBelle shared their own tales from their days of rescuing animals. “For years I conducted home visits for dog rescues [especially beagles],” they wrote. “When I was [often] asked by adopters how to prevent the dog from harassing their [cat/s], I always emphasized that cats are exceptional boundary setters [especially if they were there first].”

As the tweet went viral, reaching 33.8k likes, Moose joked, “Can’t tell if people really like veterinary training, or just #3.”

“I didn’t expect it to go viral at all,” she told Newsweek. “Typically my audience is comprised of folks in the information security industry, but all of us seem to have strange overlaps or past lives.”

She also shared a simple request: “Please consider donating to your local shelter today so we can keep helping all the murder-mittens of the world.”

“When it picked up I tried to poke everyone to think of donating to their local shelters,” Moose told Newsweek. “I used to do a lot with feral cat spay/neuter programs and all of those are run on donations.”

“The program I worked with was in Florida, and we would operate on over 100 feral cats every Monday,” she explained. “That’s how bad the population was out of control and it saved a lot of lives. Every cat got vaccines while they were under for surgery.”

“Of all the things that could go viral, I think I’m particularly happy that it’s something which sparks discussion on animal care and rescue, and not one of my bad jokes about digital forensics dumpster fires,” she added.

“It’s really nice to see so many people who consider their lives better because they share it with these creatures so full of personality, equipped with murder-mittens.”