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-   -   Cute, but bizarre cat behavior - carries stuffed animals everywhere. (http://www.pets.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=78124)

jmilber August 2nd, 2011 07:47 AM

Cute, but bizarre cat behavior - carries stuffed animals everywhere.
 
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Hello,

Our cat is 2.5 year old male short hair tabby mix. He is a wonderful kitty and does something funny that amuses us, but we can only speculate what it's purpose is.

WE have hand puppets that we use for wrestling him--- maybe 5-7 of them. Often times, he picks htem up and drags them around the house and when he does it, he makes this really weird yowling noise. Sometimes it wakes me up at night and creeps me out a bit lol Why is he making that crazy yowling noise and carrying these stuffed animals everywhere?

Often times he'll drop them off at his food dish. Other times, he will drop them off ont he floor near us or somewhere else. My mother speculates (and swears that the reason is) he is pretending to hunt, and wants to be rewarded with good wet food when he takes it to his food dish so he can pretend he's eating his kill.... sometimes I think he is trying to mount them and it is some weird sexual thing--- the sounds he makes sound similar to cat mating sounds of the male. The other theory is maybe he wants to wrestle the hand puppet, but he's not consistently in the mood to wrestle when he brings it to us.

Let me know your thoughts,

Thanks!

sugarcatmom August 2nd, 2011 10:30 AM

I vote for displaced hunting behaviour. My female semi-feral does the same thing with all of her various toys (big furry pompoms are her fave). And being a flame-point siamese, boy can she YOWL, even when her cheeks are stuffed with her "prey". Cats are hard-wired to hunt and when they aren't able to fulfill that need due to confinement indoors, the instinct can transfer into some pretty interesting behaviours.

ownedbycats August 3rd, 2011 12:44 AM

I too vote for misplaced hunting. Our four year old fixed male does the same thing, except he confines it to his cloth covered slinky toys shich are his favorites. He brings them and drops them somewhere near us, then goes to sleep. Occasionally he howls until we come to see them, sometimes they just get dropped on the bed near us. Personally, I much prefer stuffed toys to dead mice:yuck:, so I'm not discouraging him.


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