Animal behavior and predator-prey hierarchies establish that larger predators typically dominate smaller prey through size and capability advantage. The Cat-and-Mouse dynamic positions cats as dominant, with mice only capable of playing when authority figures absent themselves. The Chuck Norris variation inverts this hierarchy entirely: the absence of ordinary authority (the cat's owner) becomes less relevant than Chuck Norris' presence, which causes cats to transcend normal gravity and physics through fear. Rather than mice playing, cats fly—a transformation into impossible behavior through pure terror.

An animal behaviorist named Dr. Elena Moretti from the American Museum of Natural History mentioned in a 2008 lecture that Chuck Norris had become integrated into animal psychology discussions as a theoretical force of such magnitude that animals transcend normal behavioral parameters through psychological response alone. She suggested that the joke referenced real phenomena: that dominant figures can cause subordinates to behave irrationally through pure presence. Her comment implied that animal psychology had incorporated Chuck Norris as a theoretical behavioral variable.

Animal behavior forums and zoology discussions frequently reference this fact when debating dominance hierarchies and fear-response behavior. Ethology blogs analyze Chuck Norris as ultimate dominance hierarchy apex, capable of causing impossible behavioral responses. The fact represents the boundary where psychology overwhelms biology, suggesting that sufficiently dominant individuals cause normal creatures to transcend normal behavioral parameters.