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Animal videos are a popular genre on social media and online video platforms. Whose day isn’t brightened by seeing an adorable dog or cat doing something cute? But many of these videos unfortunately involve harms for the animals shown in them, according to new research published in Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science (Kühnöhl et al 2025).
The scientists did a detailed examination of 162 popular videos from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. It’s important to note that the videos were chosen because they were popular and they seemed to show a potential risk to the dog or cat, but they did not depict animal cruelty. So the results are not representative of all animal videos on these platforms, but they do provide important information about the kinds of harms shown in these videos. And once you know about them, you’ll never look at an animal video in the same way again.
The harms found in online videos of pets
The scientists restricted their analysis to videos that showed either a dog or a cat, and in which it was possible to get a good view of their behavior so that they could analyze whether or not the animal was suffering. In more than half of the videos (53%) the scientists found that the dog or cat was at risk of injury, and in 82% of the videos the animal was showing behavioral signs of stress. Overall, the analysis found four types of videos:
- A “challenge affecting animal welfare” including “slapping” the pet, which was found in 6.2% of the videos analyzed.
- A “challenge affecting animal welfare of sensitive pets,” which mostly involved provoking the pet in some way.
- “Fun and entertainment.”
- “Anthropomorphism” including pets wearing costumes, which was found in 6.2% of the videos.
When people were shown in the videos, their behavior towards the pet included what the scientists called “assault/harassment”, found in a third (33.8%) of the videos; “provocation” (27.6%); and “frightening/scaring” (16.6%) the pet.
The body language of the pets was assessed in 94 dog videos and 51 cat videos. The most common signs of stress in dogs were a stressed face (including wide eyes and ears back) and displacement activities (such as looking away). The most common sign of stress in cats was a stressed face (again including wide eyes and ears back). In cats, the pupils were often dilated too.
Some of the assessed videos were described as challenges, such as “the slap your dog’s butt challenge,” “scare your dog challenge,” or “cats versus cucumber challenge.” While framed as funny, this analysis shows that in fact the animals are often upset and their welfare is compromised. In 85% of the “challenges,” the scientists said that the pet was at risk of an injury; and in 50% of these cases, the pet was in pain.
Another animal welfare issue that was often seen in the videos was to do with how the animals were bred. For example, there were many brachycephalic (flat-faced) pets whose health is affected by their breeding, and Scottish Fold cats whose folded ears are the result of a painful cartilage abnormality. The scientists don’t mince their words; they refer to this kind of breeding as “agony breeding.” These pets were found more often in the fun and entertainment category of videos. As well, there were other impairments such as docked tails, cropped ears, very obese pets, and temporary impairments such as the eyes being covered.
Those “funny” videos are probably not funny
Because the study did not use a representative sample of videos, the results don’t tell us about the frequency of harms being shown in such videos. But they do tell us that many supposedly cute videos actually show distressed dogs and cats. The analysis captured a wide range of harms to animals in popular online videos, showing that we should view such videos with suspicion.
The scientists write that,
“Posts featuring pets offer users a means to counteract negative online experiences through their inherent cuteness. However, an emotional or humorous portrayal can lead to a concealment of the actual animal welfare problems by distracting from the signs of suffering. While there is nothing inherently wrong with enjoying animal videos on social media, it is crucial that they do not entail any suffering for the animals involved.”
One implication of the study is that people need to learn more about how to read dog and cat body language. If people recognized the very obvious signs of stress shown in the videos, they presumably would not find them funny any more. Since many of these videos were framed as “challenges,” another takeaway is that you should stop and think before taking part in any social media challenge involving pets. Deliberately frightening a pet is not just unkind, but it can also make them fearful of you, less likely to trust you, and anxious or fearful in general. Once a dog or cat becomes afraid, it can unfortunately take a long time and a lot of hard work to get rid of that fear (Todd, 2024).
As for pets wearing costumes, I think this is an issue when the pet has not been trained to be happy wearing it and/or when the costume restricts their normal behaviours. If you want your pet to wear a costume, choose the costume carefully, follow a gradual training plan, and use lots of great treats to teach your pet to like it. If your pet doesn’t like wearing costumes, you can use more naturalistic props like dog or cat toys to get a cute video or photo with your pet looking happy.
Next time you see an online video featuring a dog or cat, pay close attention to their body language and see if you think they are distressed. If so, clicking the “hide” button will tell the platform that you don’t want to see such things. There’s nothing wrong with cute animal videos—but they’re not cute if the animals are being harmed.
