A clamp (padded, preferably) on the scruff of the neck will temporarily brick a cat.
Try this only with familiar cats with whom you have rapport.
Don’t leave them for too long. A few minutes at most.
Why would you try that with any cat, especially one that you’re close to? The fuck.
But he only said he scruffed them (if I am reading it right), not that he grabbed them by the scruff, is this apparently something that is considered abusive or something? If a cat claws at my leg and I pinch there to make it stop that is absolutely not the same as grabbing them there. I would never actually try lifting them that way.
That’s where the term “catatonic” comes from, or so I’ve heard, and it’s a reflex because mother cats carry their babies by the scruff of their neck. From what I understand it’s totally harmless.
Someone who actually knows these things can correct me if I’m wrong of course.
As the owner of various cats over 50 years it does nothing to adult cats. It will hurt an adult cat because their weight is too much for the skin to hold. As a kid I tried it many times because I heard the myth and it only made my cat more angry.
I don’t believe kittens are affected other than being physically unable to do anything. Sort of like if you were put in a half-Nelson hold. You wouldn’t be catatonic, just unable to fight back.
You’re wrong.
Catatonic syndrome was a diagnosis first used by a German psychiatrist in the 1800’s. Before that it was described by ancient Greeks.
It’s a category (also a word that has nothing to do with cats) of major depression and schizophrenia.
