I was playing on 1.17 and was trading with the villagers, and all of a sudden I heard a cat taking damage over and over and then dying. I looked around and couldn't see a string, or anywhere a cat could get stuck and die, and there wasn't a death message indicating any of my tamed cats had teleported to a dangerous location. Later I heard the sound again, and then saw the death particles and a string pop up out of a path. I asked around if anyone else had experienced that, and someone said it happens a lot on their flat world, where the ground in the village is all path blocks to prevent slime spawns.

I did a search on the bug tracker to see if anyone else had reported this, but only found results for Bedrock Edition.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Have a village with a lot of path blocks
2. Be present in the village for a while
3. Listen for cat damage sounds