Many cat owners will tell you sleeping in bed with your cat curled up beside you is one of the best feelings in the world—unless they go into hunting mode.
Cats famously love a nap, and on average sleep between 13 and 16 hours a day — around twice the amount of humans, according to research.
But they sometimes seem intent on causing chaos. That’s what happened to Benjamin Owens, 50, when his pet decided she was no longer in the mood for napping.
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“On this particular night, she wanted to snuggle, but around midnight she switched into hunter mode and must have thought my socked feet were stuffed and started playing with them,” he told Newsweek.
His cat, Cora, aka Coco, lost her bed privileges and was put on the floor. However, when Owens got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, he witnessed what many internet users have dubbed a murder scene.
Benjamin Owens banned his cat from the bed when she started attacking his ankles. When he got up later, he found the cat had preyed on a new “snuggle buddy”.
Reddit u/Brilliant-College387
He shared a short video to Reddit’s r/funny sub on September 22 via his account Brilliant-College387, writing that he found a “horror show.”
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“My cat normally sleeps with me but I kept pushing her off because she kept biting my ankles,” he wrote. “So she decided to get a new snuggle buddy.”
The clip, boasting 71,000 upvotes, shows Coco dragging a large red monkey plush across the room by its leg. As it is almost twice the size of the cat, it’s taking all her effort, but she slowly drags him out of the light and into a dark room.
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And Reddit users loved it, with one warning: “That’s literally your cat practicing murder, better keep an eye open OP.”
To which Owens responded: “Wait. She was biting my ankles – was she actually trying to drag me away like this too?!?”
Another joked: “Every few nights you’ll see her drag something progressively heavier until it’s something comparable to your weight.”
But another insisted: “The monkey is possessed. That cat just saved your life bro!”
Father of three Owens, who lives in Texas, says Coco turns into a natural hunter at night time, with no soft toys safe from her, as smaller toys get “plunged into her watering bowl and drowned.”
Larger stuffies are “wrestled and bitten,” and when Owens spotted the murder scene with the monkey, he “just about died of laughter as the monkey’s limp body and long arms dragged behind her.”
Coco was found lying with the monkey after dragging him into the living room. Owens said he about “died” with laughter
Reddit u/Brilliant-College387
After she got her prey to the living room, Coco was found “snuggled into the monkey’s armpit,” with Owens telling Newsweek: “I guess she wanted someone who would both let her snuggle and nibble their ankles.”
Reacting to the enormous response his video had on Reddit, Owens said the clip “really captured everyone’s imagination.”
“It’s like a 17-second mystery, with everyone theorizing as to her motives,” he said, pointing out the short video “hit two of the internet’s biggest attractors: cats and murder mysteries.”
As for the monkey, it had long been appearing “in random places each morning,” but thanks to the video, “now we know why.”
Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
