Said It Here

Why does making the pspsps sound scare my cat away?

Using the traditional pspsps sound often startles cats and causes them to flee instead of coming over. This makes it impossible to reliably get their attention when you call them.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    speaking very calmly and softly
  2. 2
    calling them by their names
  3. 3
    using kissy, clicking, or 'kicikici' sounds instead

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/cats2 people · September 2026

It would definitely get my cats attention and then they’d flee! lol!source ↗

Georgxna · r/cats · 1 upvotes

My mum came to visit (she lives in another country) and when she did it all 3 of my cats ran away.source ↗

Holiday_Estimate_352 · r/cats · 1 upvotes

when people try to ‘pspsps’ my cat I kind of just look at them with a raised eyebrow, you’re scaring them!source ↗

Georgxna · r/cats

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised