"Cucumber trauma"
There's a term you usually don't hear outside of the emergency rooms in gay neighborhoods.
And, no, that's not a snark or a joke. It's literally true.
$1:
ICD-9-CM Vol. 1 Diagnostic Codes - 937
937 - Foreign body in anus and rectum
In California last year (2014) the total incidence of this was 1,272.
The two primary clusters of 637 incidents and 577 incidents were in San Francisco County and Los Angeles County, respectively.
With that in mind the cats are probably freaking out not so much because they're afraid of snakes but because they're afraid of a cucumber being shoved up their a**.
That'd make me jump, too!
