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Hay's Daze: Cats in hats are everywhere

What kind of online rabbit holes do you fall into?
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Harley Hay column

Have you ever seen a cat in a hat?  I don’t mean the Dr. Suess star of Theodor Geisel’s famous book, The Cat in the Hat (first published in 1957!), and I don’t really mean those cat videos on interweb sites like YouTube that feature a whole parade of hilarious and impossibly cute cats with cute hats.  You know - those cat videos (many of them with cats in hats playing pianos or swiping at TV screens that show mice running around).  Those cat videos that everybody sneaks a look at but never admits to “watching dumb cat videos”?
No, I mean a cat in a special hat – a hat that has electrodes embedded in it.  It’s ok, I’m not implying some sort of Frankenstein laboratory scenario in a scary dungeon where a mad scientist is creating cat monsters, what I mean is, have you seen a photo of a cat wearing an adorable crocheted hat taken at the University of Montreal?
You see, I saw that exact picture when I was noodling around online doing important research on what kind of guitar I’d like to buy when up popped that cat hat photo for no reason whatsoever.  It was the face of a super cute tabby with large green eyes and little pointy ears sticking out of the top of a thick white wool hat.  It was on the website of the radio program Quirks and Quarks, which is an excellent science show about lots of things other than cats in hats that has been on air for about 100 years.
You could just hear about a million viewers of social media simultaneously going, “Awwww” – the universal sound humans make when they see something unbearably cute. Like a cat in a crocheted hat, a baby panda bear or seven-year-old Drew Barrymore in the movie E.T.
But why - why hat electrodes on cats' heads?  Mr. Google told me that it is a research project at the Veterinarian Neurology Department at U of M.  There are 11 cats with hats that have electrodes that measure brain waves when the cats are presented with difference colors of light.  It’s, well, basically, on account of cats can’t (or don’t want to) talk.
The goal of the crocheted feline dome tests is to see if a cat actually has a brain at all because the study is being run entirely by dog lovers.  Ok, just fibbing about that, but the goal is to see if there’s a way to diagnose, and there therefore treat, chronic pain in cats.  Cats, like hockey players, are very good at masking pain, and if they are uncomfortable, they can get quite grumpy and start fights or pee on the carpet for no apparent reason.
So, scientists say that by studying kitty brain waves, they hope to be able to determine when and how much discomfort Fluffy is in and how effective the expensive cat meds are in reducing that pain.  That would be an excellent breakthrough.
Our F.C. (Fat Cat) “Chicklet” doesn’t wear a cute hat, but she does wear a ridiculous watermelon.  (Yes, watermelon.)  It’s made of soft cloth, it’s around her neck and it’s way bigger than a Frisbee.  It’s a “health collar” so that she won’t lick her sore, fat stomach, and she is extremely embarrassed to be walking around with a melon-head.
But she went cat-ballistic when we tried a vet’s plastic Cone of Shame.  So I told her if she’s good, I’ll ditch the watermelon for a poofy crocheted hat for her.  And post a video on YouTube.

Harley Hay is a Red Deer author and filmmaker. Reach out to Harley with any thoughts or ideas at harleyhay99@gmail.com.