Surely it happened to you to walk through the alleys of some city or town and see some plastic bottles filled with water at the edges of the roads, on the sidewalks or near the house doors. One urban legend He wants these bottles to serve as a deterrent for dogs and catsdiscouraging them from doing so pee near the place where they are located. However, there is no scientific data to support it, and it all seems to be a false myth.
In fact, there is no scientific evidence that bottles work to discourage dogs and cats from urinating in the places where they are placed. There are no scientific and rigorous studies on the subject, but above all the animal behavior experts debunk this myth, arguing that the bottles do not influence the animals in any way whether or not they pee nearby, but that the animal behavior In general it depends on many factors: the surrounding environment, the specific moment in which the animal finds itself, the habits it has learned.
The experts they recommend Tested methods And traditional repellents to avoid the problem of unwanted urine from animals. They are then the same peoplein everyday life, to note that in fact the bottle method does not work, reporting experiences in which pets love to pee even next to the bottles.
But then where does this urban legend come from? This myth is not only widespread in Italy, but especially in Japanunder the name of “Nekoyoke“, a real one street art for those who better arrange the bottles on the sides of the sidewalks. From Japan this practice then spread to also in America. The birth of this myth is attributed, according to some, to the New Zealand gardener Eion Alexander Scarrow: he was the first to spread it in 1980 the idea that dogs and cats would not pee in places where you roll a bottle full of water.
Some time later he declared that it was a joke on the occasion of an April Fools’ Day, but by then the hoax had spread. And with the hoax also alleged explanationsfor example that bottles filled with water could disturb animals reflecting the sunlightand thus kept them away, or that the animals would be frightened by seeing their reflection in the bottle itself. Another fanciful “explanation” claims that dogs and – especially – cats avoid puddles of waterand consequently also the bottles. According to a less biological and more social interpretation, the bottles placed on the sides of the sidewalks would serve to report to ownersespecially of dogs, of rinse then the needs of your pet.
Some bottles were found filled with bleach or chemical mixturesmaking it dangerous to leave them on the streets, as they could be drunk by mistake by children or animals. This has pushed some municipalities to forcibly remove the bottles from the streets, also appealing to the urban decorum.
We still do not know the real beginning and how such a wide diffusion of this disease was possible. hoaxmaybe the fact that it is a placebo effect and one simple solution And within everyone’s reachThe fact is that it is known throughout the worlddespite the observation and evidence that as a method it does not work at all.
