Strange New Behavior
 

My cat Panda has started doing something kind of strange with one of her toys.

She has a favorite toy - a little purple stuffed mouse - that she favors over all her other toys. She carries it around in her mouth until she finds a place she wants to play then puts it down and bats it all over the place.

Just recently, she's started "sharing" her food with it. She will bring the little purple mouse to her dish and set it down in her dish - sometimes in her food - and let's it sit there while she eats.

I move it when it's actually touching her food (she eats wet feed) and wash it when she isn't playing with it and leaves it lying around.

Why is she doing this? Is she trying to share her food?

I have heard of this...

When cats play with toys they are "practicing a kill". Have you noticed any of your cats, after a play session going to the food bowl? We had one cat Tippy who recently passed who did that very often. Play and then have to eat.

Weezie does it to some extent.

But Oreo...who really catches and then EATS her real mouse or chipmunk does NOT go to the food bowl.

I think the instinct is to stimulate appetite when "catching" or playing and then their body tells them to eat. In this case, she is taking the pretend food to the food place as part of that. It might be that more feral cats do this than very domestic ones. None of our cats take a toy mouse to the dish, but I've seen some posts here in that describe this or something similar.

Both Oreo and Weez bring in kills and "stash" them if they can. We found 3 dead things including a rabbit's foot, under the other bed upNorth, when getting ready for my son's visit. They were all still fresh, and we saw Weez bring in the 3rd! This was new and from that moment on...it was "out out"...or closing the door, so they couldn't come in. Some cats will stash prey like they do toys... which is not something I can accept.

I read about this in a book called Twisted Whiskers, or the sequeal whose name I can't recall now. In one of those books, the author described a cat who stashed animal prey in a mattress in an unused bedroom, and created a huge stink problem!

this is the author and book:

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Sorry I can't recall the other book she wrote...I found them both at our library years ago! Very interesting read! About the weird things cats do when kept indoors!

My other two don't do this. They've been indoor only cats for many years. Panda was feral when I brought her in last year and she's adapted quite well to being an indoor only cat. She still exhibits a few feral tendencies such as trying to cover her food after she eats but other than that she hasn't acted feral anymore at all. She loves to sit in the windows and watch outside but never asks to go out.

Thanks for the book suggestion. I'll have to see if the library has it. I'd like to read it. :)

I found this on the net....

3 theories:

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I looked her up...Pam Johnson....she has 7 books now!
The other I have a blank on is Hiss and Tell.

I don't remember which one had the story about the stashing prey business. But I recall one story about a cat who witnessed another cat entering the kitchen and eating out of the food bowl, and exiting...and when that happened the indoor cat refused to eat at all. Pam was called in and could not figure it out...so she stayed overnight for weekend, and saw the intruder come in and realized that the indoor cat was afraid of that spot.
So they moved food to another room and the cat started eating again.

Amazon has sellers on their pages who have remainders and/or good condition copies of books for pennies usually. The shipping is 3.99 tho.
I just checked Ebay and they are more expensive. She has one called Psycho Kitty, and Starting from Scratch. LOL

She has a website, blog, you might enjoy too:

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Some stories are weird, some funny, and some touching!

One of my cats does this with his toy mice. He only like certain mice (both color and style) and carries them from room to room to play. However, he usually puts them in his food bowl at night, then goes to bed. They are still there in the morning, then he takes them out to play again.

He also takes one particular red mouse (that's sort of beat up) and drops it in the water bowl. Sometimes he'll play with it in the bowl and/or scoop it out, other times he just leaves it to drown. He doesn't play with this mouse any other place other than drowning him in the water bowl. Crazy cat!!! But I love him.

They ARE eccentric, aren't they? Weez is pretty odd sometimes too.

We had a cardboard box (from Costco produce) in our living room along a buffet cabinet. It was a low thing she liked to sit in when she was a kitten. I kept it for summer when I give away plants that I grow from seed to friends.

When Weez was growing up, and didn't go outside (winter) we played fetch all day long. She liked anything I had. Twist-ems, pens, the white rings from snapple bottles, and the snapple tops too. Well, all her appropriated toys seemed to disappear with time and she'd come begging for a new fetch. So I'd give her one off the snapple I was drinking that day.

In June I lifted up the box to put a bunch of plants in for a friend to take home and UNDER it were at least 25 things..mostly snapple lids and rings and a few twistems. This box was slightly elevated, to stack on others for strawberries or whatever so there was the little 1/2 inch space. Weez would carry those items around, bring them to me for fetch time, and then stash them apparently! I was totally amazed. None of our other cats ever did things like this! LOL;)

Can cats see color? That's funny that your cat likes the red mouse and mine likes the purple one.

I call their toys "babies" and they all seem to know what I'm talking about when I say something like "where's the baby?" or "get that baby". They respond by looking for it or sneaking up on it and pouncing if it's in their sight.

Panda favors this one purple mouse. I don't know why because there are others that have catnip in them but she ignores them. Guess cats, like people, have their favorite things.

On a side note....while I was typing this post Panda was playing with the purple mouse and crashed into her dry food bowl on the floor. The whole thing tipped over and dry kibble went in every direction! She went flying down the hall and crept back in while I was cleaning it up! :D It scared her but not enough to desert purple mouse for good. She scooted back over and picked him up and took him in the other room. :p

They really are smart.... predators have to be. Weez really learned alot from playing with me. Honed her reflexes. She wasn't outside a week, when she caught her first chipmunk. She doesn't kill anything yet unless it dies of fright! (the pigmy shrews do die of fright)...
Nor does she try to eat them. Oreo DOES eat her kills most of the time if hungry. Or she leaves them for us, dead.

I've watched them stalk a chipmunk hole together. In fact I've seen Oreo bring a live chipmunk to Weez to teach her!

I think cats who do not go outside have to have an outlet for their instincts. Some may be hunting or mothering.
Sheba used to play with our son's giant rubber ant toy. She'd bite a leg then throw it up in the air and pounce on it! But I don't recall her ever trying to catch a living thing even though she went outside. It must be somewhat unique to each animal based on their needs and cravings etc.

But I agree, fun to watch! In fact here, it is never a dull moment some days! LOL

Of course! Animals are animals, and domestication doesn't change that one iota. When we had an indoor-only cat, we had one of those little kitty-fisher fishing poles with a catnip mouse. That and bugs. The cat and all our dogs have been avid bug-hunters (and a scream to watch).

I was just re-reading some articles on Fixed Action Patterns and the Flehmen Response (not these articles, but these describe them). Fascinating stuff.

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Dogs have a few FAPs (like turning in circles before lying down) and they're very much into learned rituals, which can make it fun to goof on them once in a while (it helps keep those instincts sharp too).

We've had a few strange behaviors.... One dog, whenever she got a new rawhide, would carry it around to every corner of the house and put it down there as if to hide it, wait a few seconds, then pick it up and try another corner. She seemed just a tad distressed about the whole situation, sometimes even whining a little. We thought it might be tantamount to hiding/burying a bone (and nobody really knows why dogs do this) but we never really figured it out (except that it was not to spread its scent around). Eventually she'd stop, settle in, and start chewing, and everything was fine.

Our current therapy dog does the snatch the biscuit from resting on his nose trick - very well. Suddenly a couple days ago he just stopped doing it. He ignored the release word and just sat there with it on his nose. He did this for 2 days, and now he's back to normal again. Dogs are weird.

Doc

Yes, but not the full spectrum like most humans. Humans have three kinds of cones in our eyes that allow us to see red, green, and blue. Cats & dogs have only two kinds of cones, sensitive green & blue, so they cannot see red. They are, however, much better at seeing moving objects (a hunting advantage) and seeing in subdued light.

Doc