cats and fireworks

[greenrook]

My 2 confident cats, brother and sister 4 years old, go to ground behind the sofa around Nov. 5th., or New Year time, or whenever there is a distant firework explosion outside. Sometimes they seem to hear distant bangs which we, their owners, miss, and they react accordingly. Tonight we watched a TV film about the life of John Dillinger, and about a million noisy rounds were fired, we had to turn the volume down. Brother cat slept blissfully in his armchair throughout, on his back with feet in the air, and sister sprawled purring on my lap. So how do they make the distinction, I would have thought a bang is a bang is a bang. It's not a problem, I just wonder.

[Wharton]

My cat reacts to the loud ringing of a phone in a TV programme yet completely ignores the phone at home, obviously a different breed from yours!!

[woofgang]

My dogs are the same. They will sleep next to the TV through a war movie but will panic at the sound of fireworks that I can't here. The also seem to react to the drop in air pressure before a storm hits.
Its one of the reasons that pet desensitisation CD's don't always work, some animals can tell the difference between recorded noise and the real thing. Equally a barking dog or mewing cat on TV get no response but the real thing at a much greater distance/lower volume does.

[paddywak]

Max could have slept through an earthquake, but he could hear a cat on his patch or the fridge door open at 500 yards.

[Robinia]

I've got very sensitive hearing and I can 'feel' the noise of loud fireworks in a way I don't if they're on tv, even if the volume's turned up. I suppose animals are the same.

[greenrook]

Well, there you go, they're all different I suppose. My old Siamese, now sadly gone, used to sit out on the deck watching the rockets, and when there was a particularly loud explosion his mouth would move in a silent meow.
Thank you all for your kind response - G.

[ummmm]

I've often wondered this.

[starone]

As soon as you start to open a tin my brother's cat appears. He could have been upstairs, downstairs, in the garden, but he always hears that sound, which I suppose to him means food.