Why your cat likes to knock things off surfaces

Why do cats like to knock things off shelves or tables or kitchen counters and watch the object fall to the ground, bounce around and perhaps sometimes break? It looks a bit destructive. A little like the actions of a naughty child. I'm sure some cat caregivers react to this feline behaviour as if they were reacting to their child misbehaving. They shouldn't of course because the motivation is completely different.

On the internet, there are millions of articles on this topic. It is a highly competitive area for the search engines. That's the reason why I am writing this again because I have the same title on another website but that page has died over time and so I am trying to revive this content.

Some ideas on the reasons

There are several reasons why domestic cats knock things over and often watch them fall to the ground as described. These are my thoughts.

Boredom: a lot of indoor cats become bored. They want to try and recreate the kind of mental stimulation that they would enjoy outside. They can achieve that goal temporarily and very artificially by knocking an object off a table. The object moves. It temporarily (and using a lot of imagination) becomes a prey animal which they can then jump after and sniff. That is sometimes the response of the cat after they've knocked the object off the mantelpiece. The owner should not be annoyed with their cat as they need to look to themselves for the solution. 💕😉

Playfulness: it's another attempt at trying to entertain themselves. And once again it engages their minds. And in doing it they are physically active in a very minor way. It is therefore a form of play in the same way that when cats are genuinely playing they bat things around. I've just written an article on the four basic themes of kitten play in which I have an Infographic. You might like to read that by clicking on this link.

Attention seeking: this is quite a good reason. Once again it almost emanates from boredom. Boredom that their owner is not interacting with them and stimulating them so they create a scenario which attracts the attention of their owner and they therefore have this interaction afterwards which is better than nothing. It might not be a particularly pleasant interaction, however 🙄! Especially if the object that was knocked over was a precious vase.

Hunting behaviour: this is an extension of the other items above. You knock something over and it moves and they can believe that it is an animal and hunt it. As mentioned it requires imagination. But kittens and cats are very good at playing with objects as if those dead objects are living animals. That's why, by the way, it is best that cat toys are soft and can be destroyed because they then replicate a living animal. Hard plastic toys manufactured commercially sometimes can become boring to a cat because they can't sink their teeth into it and claw the object to death!

Checking if the object is living! Once again an extension of the above. Cats do like to prod and poke animals they have killed to try and reanimate them to allow them to continue entertaining themselves. Prodding an inanimate object may be a similar form of behaviour and if it falls off a high surface so much the better.

Territorial marking: some say this is also a form of territorial marking because they have scent glands in their paws and that scent is deposited on the object. I'm not so sure about this but it's worth including in the list.

Common thread: I think you might see a common thread to the above. It comes back ultimately to mental stimulation; to find something which at least very temporarily stimulates the mind. It looks naughty but it's just trying to create something out of nothing. Which leads me nicely to the next item:  enriching the environment. Vital in the cat's world when stuck inside the home (understandable in today's world).

In a truly enriched environment you will find that domestic cats don't engage in this "naughty" behaviour. You've got to provide plenty of toys and activities to keep your cat engaged. You've got to play with your cat on a regular basis if you have the time. You've got to provide high places and climbing poles and runs et cetera. They can be within the home and outside the home in a cat proof enclosure or a catio. I'm afraid that very few people enrich their home environment enough to the point where the cat will never knock things off a mantelpiece!

Hope this helps a little. Hope it gets seen! As I said it is a very competitive area of cat behaviour in terms of online articles.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Litter box problems: the big why. Three categories.

Litter box problems are very common cat ownership problems and even more commonly written about on the Internet! It's got quite tiresome reading about them but I would like to very briefly mention the three categories which describe the reasons for inappropriate elimination i.e. litter box problems. 

This is a discussion article using Galaxy's book Total Cat Mojo as a source.

There are three primary umbrella categories and they are. As mentioned, I am referring to Jackson Galaxy's writings of which I have been critical sometimes. Unless I am misunderstanding him which would be entirely possible as his writing is impenetrable sometimes. 😢 Sorry. He is a great guy though. I just don't like his books.

RELATED: What is the best location for a cat litter tray?

Territorial stress: Jackson Galaxy says that one cause of litter box problems is territorial stress. He appears to be talking about the establishment and retention of a home range by domestic cat which is instinctive to the cat. And if their home range is invaded they might mark their territory at the extremities of the territory to tell invaders to stay away. But I don't think this is anything to do with inappropriate elimination i.e. peeing in litter box. Spraying urine on vertical surfaces is not about eliminating urine from the system. It's about sending a message to other cats. Although it might look like inappropriate elimination it isn't.

But Jackson does go on to say that when domestic cats are able to fully express their behaviours, in Jackson Galaxy language "the cats have total cat mojo", and they are unable to express their mojo because of territorial stress then they might urinate but this form of peeing will I believe be spraying rather than elimination. Perhaps the means that stress per se can disrupt the used of the litter tray. Certainly in multi-cat homes there is a great chance that the cat will be stressed because of territorial issues.

Mr Galaxy says that "If the mojo is missing, there will be pissing."

These threats within the territory might come from within the territory or outside the territory. If it outside the territory it will be an invasion which might shrink the territory. If it comes from within the home range i.e. territory it might be due to broken or non-existent relationships or changes within the "rhythm of the territory or the territory itself will threaten the mojo balance". This is typical Galaxy language which is almost impenetrable. But I think he means that there will be a limited hierarchy in multi-cat homes which should be in balance. If not it can stress cats.

Litter box aversion: this applies to cats that don't want to use a litter box for a number of reasons. It applies to using any place within the home other than the litter box to urinate and defecate. It may be due to declawing which makes their paws sore. It might be due to the substrate i.e. the material in the litter box. It might be to do with the size of litter box being too small. Litter box might be covered and this might upset the cat. Or it might be in the wrong place (too exposed). 

RELATED: 26 facts about ‘inappropriate elimination’

And it may be because other cats are using the litter box i.e. it's shared which is not a good idea. And there might be challenges from one cat to another to use the litter box which might cause litter box aversion. Sometimes in multi-cat homes, one cat bars other cats from using a single litter box or getting at food et cetera. It's a form of domination.

Medical issues: this overlaps with the above. In the words of Jackson Galaxy, "There can be a number of physical maladies that trigger eliminating outside the litter box. Left untreated, many of these can lead to, or serve as an indication of more serious health risks." He recommends a visit to a veterinarian without fail at the first sign of any litter box issues.

Declawing as mentioned comes to mind. Cystitis due to stress causes peeing on carpets and in baths. It is a bacterial infection of the bladder. It can be due to separation anxiety.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Are domestic cats genuinely picky about food?

I'm one of those cat caregivers who is unsure whether domestic cats are genuinely picky about their food. I think we can do a little test in our minds. We don't have to do it with our cat. We can just think about this. Let's say a domestic cat hasn't eaten all day for whatever reason. Perhaps for two days. You give them some lousy cat food and they gobble it up because they are starving. If a cat is hungry they will eat the decent food you give them. And leave the bowl empty.

If, by contrast, you give them a nice treat perhaps a little too often, they will be waiting for that treat the next time. If you give them some standard cat food in its place they might not be inclined to eat it but rather wait for the treat that they know is coming in the not too distant future, or so they think.

I have a feeling that many of us - and I am probably equally guilty on this - tend to give our cats too many treats because we love them so much. We want to please them. We might give them really high quality cat food which is expensive from time to time and they wait for that next high quality meal. They might turn up their noses at food which is of a lesser quality.

This is not being picky as such. It is simply being rational and sensible. To be "picky" is to be fussy and difficult to please. To be overly fussy. When a cat turns down food I don't believe they are being difficult to please or fussy. They simply believe that there's something better for them in the kitchen and, in addition, they aren't particularly hungry.

The key is probably to feed your cat a bit less. This would square up nicely with information that we know is true namely that there is pet obesity epidemic in America and the UK and perhaps other Western countries. Around 40% of cats and dogs are assessed as being obese by veterinarians. They are being fed too much. That's the simple cause so feeding less to make them a little hungrier will have two benefits (1) lose some weight (2) be less picky! No, they aren't picky, just sensible.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Cats like to scratch chenille but dislike synthetic leather or waterproof grosgrain

A test with rescue cats in a rescue cat setting showed that the cats preferred to scratch objects covered in chenille but disliked scratching synthetic leather or waterproof grosgrain fabrics. That's all I know! The information comes from a study published on July 19, 2021.

Chenille. Image in public domain.

I think the study is actually interesting but we need more information. I would like to see a full list of fabrics at the top of which would be the fabrics that cats most liked to scratch and at the bottom of which would be the fabrics that they least liked to scratch. This would assist cat owners when purchasing furniture.

I didn't know what chenille really looked like so I looked it up. It is a tufted, velvety, fluffy yarn, used for trimming furniture and made into carpets or clothing. It looks a bit like velvet. I guess that it is a fabric that cats can get their nails into, which feels nice when they scratch it. It is probably effective in sloughing off the outer cuticle of the claw, which is one reason why cat scratch furniture or a scratching post ideally.

RELATED: Infographic on the reasons why cats scratch armchairs.

We know what synthetic leather looks like. It's sort of plasticky which I suspect is by cats don't like it. Their claws go through it in an uncomfortable way and it might not be as effective in sloughing off the outer cuticle.

Of course, just because cats are less inclined to scratch waterproof grosgrain it doesn't mean that they're not going to scratch the fabric but I guess less so.

By the way, grosgrain is a tightly woven plastic fabric as I understand it. You can see a picture of it below. I suspect that it is too tightly woven for claws to penetrate freely.

Grosgrain ribbon showing the nature and texture of this fabric. Image in public domain.

Study citation: 

Alexandre P. Rossi, Cassia R. C. dos Santos, Caroline M. Maia, Claudia C. B. Terzian, Deisy F. Predebon, Juliana S. C. de Queiroz, Laraue P. M. Pereira, Marina Z. N. Bastos, Maurício Choinski, Patricia E. Tsapatsis, Samantha R. M. de Assis & Tatiana M. Corrêa (2023) Rescued Cats Prefer to Scratch Fabrics Commonly Used to Cover Upholstered Furniture, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 26:3, 313-324, DOI: 10.1080/10888705.2021.1949595

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

There are deficiencies in indoor cat housing causing multiple behavioural problems

The title comes from a study dated 1997 of around 1200 cats living indoors full-time.

Many more domestic cats are full-time indoor cats today, 2023, then there were 20 years ago. There is a trend towards keeping domestic cat indoors full-time. 

The domestic cat, it is said, is barely domesticated. They retain, underneath the surface, their wild cat behaviours. This includes the size of their home range and all the other behaviours to do with a solitary, predatory lifestyle.

Full-time indoor cat superhighway. An important aspect of creating a good indoor environment. Image in public domain.

In 1997, a study assessed the behaviour of just under 1200 full-time indoor cats owned by 550 owners. A total of 65% of the cats were standard random-bred cats described as "domestic European shorthairs". 

Just under 80% were sterilized animals. Comment: this is a quite a high percentage of unsterilised domestic cats which may have had an effect on the conclusions because unsterilised gets retain more of their wild cat inherited behaviours all of which will be unwanted by a human.

87 percent of the owners were female and 59% of the household had more than one cat with an average of 2.2 cats per household.

On average, an individual cat used 34 m² of living space and had five different resting places.

Cat walks. Important for full-time indoor cats. Image in public domain.

Importantly, the owner's bed was the favourite resting place in 52% of the cases. Comment: this is because the owner's bed carries the most body odour of any other area in the home. And body odour is very important to domestic cats. It's also why sometimes domestic cats defecate on their owner's bed when they are stressed. They want to merge their scent in their faeces with the scent of their owner to reassure themselves.

RELATED: Every full-time indoor cat should have a window box (at least).

55% of the owners let the cat out under various levels of control. 79% fed their cats in the kitchen and 24% of the cats had communal food bowls.

A total of 51% of the cats had to share their cat toilet. Comment: this is a very bad policy. Jackson Galaxy, the well-known American cat behaviourist advises that there should be one cat litter per cat plus one extra. 

You do not want resource guarding behaviour by a dominant cat over a subservient cat which might take place if there isn't enough litter trays. And to share food bowls will help promote the same problem.

22% of the cat were fed in the same room as their toilet. That means that one-fifth of cases the food bowl was in the same room as the litter tray which is also a very bad idea.

The picture painted by the study is that the owners were not doing a great job looking after their full-time indoor cats. This is probably why in 54.7% of the households the owners complained of one or more behavioural problems with their cats.

The owners were given self-assessment questionnaires. The most often mentioned cat behaviour problems were:

• A state of anxiety in 16.7% of the cats,
• 15.2% of the cat scratched furniture,
• Feeding problems accounted for 10.9% of complaints,
• 10.5% of cat owners complained about cat aggression
• 8.2% of the owners complained about inappropriate urination and urine spraying
• And defecation in the home was a problem in 5.2% of the cases.

They concluded that neutered females exhibited problems most often. Owners with children complained more often about cat behaviour. Comment: probably because the kids were mishandling the cats and getting scratched and the cats were getting stressed.

When the owner spent more time interacting with their cat i.e. for several hours spread over the day they mentioned problems less often.

Cat owners spent less effort trying to resolve cat anxiety problems and scratching furniture problems than other problems.

In many cases the owners were unable to solve the problems on their own

The overall conclusion was that "there are deficiencies in indoor cat housing and that owners need help to correct them."

RELATED: The big flaw that is never admitted in keeping cats indoors full-time.

I have said it before; with the trend for full-time indoor cats not enough is being done in parallel with this to ensure that the environment is adequate as a good substitute for the indoor/outdoor environment. This is going to cause behavioural problems. This may in turn lead to an increase in cats being abandoned to shelters or simply dumped.

Study: Housing conditions and behavioural problems of indoor cats as assessed by their owners. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(96)01134-3

Do male cats kill kittens? (The disturbing truth)

There are a lot of theories about if and why male domestic and stray cats (tomcats - unneutered) kill kittens. There are different points of view about this. I've seen all those points of view and it's confusing. That is the disturbing truth! It appears to me that we are unsure about the reason and how rare it is.

I've just watched a video with the same title as this article and I don't think the person who presents that video is accurate (see video at base of page). Essentially, they say that male adult domestic cats kill kittens because they are threatening and they threaten to upset their territorial objectives. I don't believe that. I don't think kittens are threatening to adult male cats. I can't see how that can happen. So, I believe there is a lot of information on the Internet on this topic which is misleading.

Image: MikeB

A person I admire and respect, Sarah Hartwell, tells us that a tomcat will normally establish a territory which contains a number of female cats. I agree that. She then goes on to say that "it is in his own interest to repel other males and to destroy kittens which may have been fathered by another male and which contain the genetic complement of his rival". 

She goes on to explain that a tomcat will be able to recognise his kittens through their smell and their appearance. She is more or less reciting what people say about lions in the African Savannah when they kill kittens produced by other male lions within a pride as part of the process of taking over that pride.

I'm not sure that she is correct to be perfectly honest. I tend to prefer the thoughts of another person I admire, Dr. Desmond Morris (a great zoologist and author). He states in his book Catlore that the male domestic cat has been looked upon as a sex maniac for centuries. He disagrees that tomcats (unneutered male cats) destroy the litters of kittens in order to get the females back on heat again more quickly. This, once again as a reference to how male lions behave when taking over a lion pride. He says the story has lasted "well during the past two millennia and many people still believe it".

He doesn't see any "possible biological advantage of such a reaction on the part of tomcats". He, too, appears to have got that wrong because male lions do this in order to father their own kittens in order to further their breeding line. But do unneutered domestic cats do this?

Dr. Morris likes to refer to observations of the European wildcat. He is referring to the ancestor of the domestic cat which is actually the North African wildcat but there is no difference between that subspecies and the European subspecies in terms of behaviour.

He says when you observe the behaviour of the wildcats you will see that "far from being kitten-killers, the males sometimes actively participate in rearing the young."

He adds that:

"One tom was seen to carry his own food to the entrance of the den in which a female had given birth and placed it there for her. Another tom did the same thing, supplying the female with food while she was unable to leave the nest during the first days after producing her litter."

And this tomcat became very defensive and threatened human visitors in a way that he had not done before the kittens were born. These observations took place in a zoo where he says it would be more likely to see tomcat aggression towards their young.

In the wild, cats have very large territories. The chances of a tomcat coming across a female in her den with kittens is remote. This means there is little possibility of a male cat providing parental care or parental infanticide. In a zoo which is crowded and in which the cats are in closer proximity there will be an increased likelihood of tomcat/kitten encounters where four types of reactions might occur:

1. The male cat simply ignores the kittens.
2. The male cat behaves paternally towards them as mentioned.
3. The female attacks the male soon as he approaches her nest and drives him away before he can do anything concerning the kittens.
4. The male cat kills the kittens.

The fourth reaction is the traditional one that we read about a loss on the internet. But it is, in reality, extremely rare.

Dr. Desmond Morris states that a female cat sometimes experiences a false heat a few weeks after she has given birth. This may excite a nearby tomcat. The female normally fights him off and drives him away.

The male cat is in a great state of sexual arousal at this point. He is frustrated. If he meets a small kitten at this time, he may try to mount it and mate with it.

This may be enhanced by the low crouch to posture of the kitten which is similar to the sexually responsive posture of an adult female cat.

The kitten is unable to move away quickly when the male cat mounts it which acts as a sexual signal to the overexcited male cat. This, Dr. Morris says "seals the fate of the unfortunate kitten".

The male cat does not deliberately attack the kitten but when mounting the tiny offspring he performs the normal neck bite that he employs when mating with a female in order to keep her passive. For a kitten, this feels like their mother maternally grabbing the kitten when moving them to a new den. The kitten does not struggle. Indeed, it responds by keeping perfectly still. This is the sexual signal from the adult female that tells the male that she is ready to mate.

This compounds the misunderstanding which causes disaster when the "mounted tomcat discovers that the kitten is too small for mating. He cannot manoeuvre himself into the correct position. His response to this problem is to grip the kitten's neck tighter and tighter as if he is dealing with an awkward adult mate. In the process he accidentally crunches the tiny kitten's delicate head and it dies.

Once the kitten has been killed it may trigger off a new reaction in the tomcat. Dead kittens are often devoured by their parents as a way of keeping the nest clean. As a consequence, the male cat's sexual frustrations may now lead to the kitten being eaten as a further anomaly in the feline mating sequence.

These are rare instances but they led to stories of tomcat cannibalism painting the male cat as a savage monster intent on slaughtering and eating their offspring.

Dr. Morris goes on to say that often rare events when they become established become the "norm". They become part of folklore. But they are exaggerated and over-egged stories based upon, as mentioned, extremely rare and unusual instances.

That, in a nutshell, is what Dr. Desmond Morris states about tomcat killing and eating kittens. It does happen. I will leave it to you to decide what you think is the right answer. There is one certainty; it's a rare event and people should not think that it is normal male cat behaviour.

Realism! Infographic on 5 barriers to a successful relationship with your domestic cat

This is a brief cross post to a similar article that I have just written on the main website. The reason? I think it's an important topic. Although I don't want to talk down the relationship between domestic cats and humans. This is a wonderful success story which is why there are about 90 million domestic cats in America and about 11 million in the UK and so on. There are perhaps around 250 million domestic cats in the world but as a sign of failure there are a similar number of unowned cats as well. Not great. A pessimist might argue that the domestication of the cat is a failure as a whole.

Realism! Infographic on 5 barriers to a successful relationship with your domestic cat. By MikeB

There are some barriers if we are to be realistic to the relationship. And I am a great realist. I believe in realism because in this way we can overcome those barriers. If we recognise them, we can then develop strategies to deal with them. Normally, we do this automatically. 

Claws

We learn to avoid being scratched by our cat. Well, at least most of us do. Sadly, some don't. The terrified weaklings and nervous types who declaw their cats are cruel quite frankly. It is a barbaric operation. And the word "barbaric" is not one of my making. The world's top veterinarian and author Dr. Bruce Fogle DVM has used it in his book Complete Cat Care.

Declawing is a cop-out. It is a cheap fix for the owner and a dire mutilation for the cat.

I won't go on about declawing but it is a horror story and it should never happen. It does happen because, as mentioned, the domestic cat's claws are a barrier to the success of a good relationship between human cat and vets can't pass up on the opportunity to make a few bucks. And there are four others.

Teeth

How many people have been bitten by their cat because of redirected aggression or because they played too hard with their cat? How many times have domestic cats been abandoned to rescue centres because a child was bitten by the family cat because of manhandling?

If a domestic cat did not have those gorgeous canine teeth but little incisor teeth throughout their mouth, there would be no penetrating cat bites injecting bacteria under the skin of the human. And there would be much fewer abandonment of cats to shelters for this reason.

"Bad cat behaviour" is a reason why people abandon their cats. One form of bad cat behaviour is to be bitten and scratched by a cat. Of course, the reason is invariably due to human behaviour because they lacked the foresight and wherewithal to avoid those injuries. It is natural behaviour that humans naturally dislike.

It is down to the human to use their intelligence to learn how cats behave and when they are susceptible to biting and scratching and to avoid those moments.

Circadian rhythms

The disparity in circadian rhythms between domestic cats and people is highly noticeable but I think people don't sometimes recognise it. In stark terms, domestic cats like to be active at night, particularly dawn and dusk, while humans have the deeply entrenched habit of going to sleep at night when it's dark, waking up in the morning and being active throughout daytime.

Domestic cats don't understand this. They see their human companion as a surrogate mother and therefore a feline. Why is their mother sleeping all night? They desperately want to wake them up. That is why they come onto the bed at four in the morning and start poking and prodding their owner's face or nose to wake them up. Or they do something else. Domestic cats are very creative in waking up their human caregiver's in the early hours of the morning. This then is a barrier to a successful relationship with your domestic cat.

There are perhaps millions of words spoken about keeping cats out of the bedroom at night or preventing them from waking up their caregiver at four in the morning. This is down to a disparity in circadian rhythms.

It is also down to the fact that the human bedroom smells very much of the human and domestic cats love it. They want to be there, at the center of their home range. To prevent them coming into the bedroom at night I think is unfair even cruel. Jackson Galaxy, the American behaviourist would agree with me.

Environment

This leads me nicely to the environment. There is a gradual, year-on-year increase in the number of full-time indoor cats in the West, particularly the UK and the USA. This is to protect wildlife and domestic cats. It gives the owner peace of mind. It is doing the right thing on conservation and in providing security to their cat companion.

These are all great reasons but the counterpart is a great failing in not providing a substitute environment within the home which goes some way to making up for the loss of the outdoor environment where a domestic cat can hunt to their hearts content. Hunting is the raison d'être of a domestic cat. It is the way their mind is stimulated and the way they find happiness.

To simply shut all the doors and windows and keep them captive inside the home without anything else is also in my opinion at least slightly cruel. Dopamine is released into the cat's brain when he hunts thus creating a feeling of eager anticipation which makes it less likely for him to feel bored, anxious, or depressed.

It is beholden upon cat caregiver to at least provide a catio environment where they can sniff the air and feel some earth beneath their feet. 

Where they can hear the birds and the animals. They might become frustrated but at least they can see and hear. Also, in a good catio they can climb to the ceiling to exercise their desire to move vertically. Catio cats are content cats and their personalities improve.

In the very best homes where the owner has converted it to suit their cat, the interiors are awesome. Very, very few people do this but when they do it is done beautifully.

Predator

The domestic cat, as you know, as a top-quality predator. Within their weight class they are the top predator on land I would argue. They have inherited all the weapons they need to be successful. I've mentioned them. But this is a barrier to a successful domestic cat to human relationship. A lot of people don't want their cat to kill animals. And they don't like it when they bring half dead animals into the home where they kill them and then eat them on the kitchen floor. Millions of cat owners have spent millions of hours trying to save mice from their cat to release them to the exterior. This is a barrier to a successful relationship.

My cat is a wonderful hunter. He often brings mice into the home during the warmer months, kills them and then eats them under my bed. I wake up to the sound of a once living sending creature being eaten. I also can hear the mouse crying in defence before the killing bite. Not something I like at all. I put up with it but it is a detriment to our relationship.

Let's accept the barriers and find ways around them. That's what most but not all cat owners do, which is why I have written this article and created this infographic.

Cat in toxic but amusing relationship with jovial owner

Cat in toxic but amusing relationship with jovial owner. Screenshots. Image: MikeB.

This amusing video is on Reddit.com. Below the video is my suggestion on Reddit.com to try and stop it ✔️. It is very brief and I am not saying it is the full picture. But there needs to be remedial cat training. My God, some human training too, perhaps. But they are obviously a nice couple with a close relationship. It is just that the cat has developed a habit of biting his human caregiver. A well-known saying comes to mind: to bite the hand that feeds you.

   

Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which would stop it working here. I have no control over this.

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Made me laugh. Thanks. I think the problem here is not with cat behavior but human behavior. The cat has got used to biting his arm. That needs to be trained out. Trying playing with him more using a tease not the hands or arm 😎. Much more. And perhaps use the Act of God technique to modify feline behavior. However, the man must not punish the cat. Nor must he encourage this. I agree with the other comment; don't point fingers near a cat's face. They see those as prey animals to bite.

Owner-surrendered cats find animal shelters harder to deal with than stray cats

This might be common knowledge among animal shelter workers but I think it's still worth repeating. A study published in 2007: Behavioral differences between owner surrender and stray domestic cats after entering an animal shelter, found that when a cat owner surrendered their domestic cat companion to a shelter the cat found the whole shelter experience more stressful than stray cats brought to the shelter.

Shelter tabby cat keen to be adopted. Photo: Pixabay.

I can't read the detailed conclusion or the reasons behind this finding because I have to pay for access to the entire study but I think I can reasonably guess the reason why. 

Domestic cats are used to a friendly environment. Stray cats are used to a hostile environment. When a stray cat goes into a shelter there is perhaps not a lot of difference in the sense of hostility that the environment brings to them. But for a domestic cat it's a shock. They go from what should be a calm, pleasant environment to one which is noisy and where there are a lot of people coming and going and cats and dogs in cages making noises.

It is a foregone conclusion that an owner-surrendered cat is likely to feel stressed. The amount of stress they feel will depend upon their personality and their previous lifestyle.

In this study they examined 86 domestic cats (some of whom were stray cats). They measured their behaviour for the first three days after entering an animal shelter. They labelled the owner-surrendered cats as "OS" and the stray cats as "S".

The conclusion was:

"Results indicate that OS cats showed the greatest behavioral measures of stress and arousal compared to S cats."

They also found that the "mean behavioural stress rating" of cats that had been euthanised due to illness or disease was significantly higher in the OS group compared to the S group.

Further, when they examined archival data from 260 shelter cats that had developed an upper respiratory infection, the OS cats became ill much sooner than the S cats. They concluded that this was because they suffered from more stress than the S cats.

OS cats suffer from more stress than S cats when entering a shelter environment which impacts their behaviour, their health and general well-being. It can also lead to euthanasia as opposed to being adopted.

It's is a known fact that shelters can be very stressful places for cats. It makes them prone to behavioural problems and health issues. These include weight loss, self-trauma, over-grooming, aggression, withdrawal, bladder problems and upper respiratory infections.

A strong suggestion is that the best way to reduce stress in residents who are at a shelter in the long term is to remove them to a foster home which gets them out of the shelter environment. They should stay there until they are adopted. This should not just be a de-stressing tool. And foster carers should be trained and allowed to adopt out cats in their care.

The shelter can make arrangements to advertise the cats online and at their facility in the usual way and then refer potential adopters to the foster carer's home to meet the cat and discuss adoption.

An alternative is to divide shelter cats into two groups: one group is better able to deal with the shelter environment and are fast tracked for adoption while the second group may become more stressed and are therefore subject to more attention to alleviate stress and make their stay more acceptable to them. This should happen as soon as they enter the shelter.

This cat always tries to steal food

This cat always tries to steal food. He is totally obsessed. Behavior or medical reasons? 

Cat obsessed with food and he steals it all the time. Screenshot.

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You decide why!? It is probably due to a bad experience at getting food in early life. What about being outmanoeuvred when at his mother's nipple trying to get some milk? That may just be a possibility. Although when newborn kittens are at their mother's nipple, they effectively allocate each other a certain nipple to stop competition between them as this helps them all to survive and progress to weaning. I think though in this case something went wrong and he didn't have a nipple, felt left out, felt hungry and ever since he's been like this! Read about how cats wean their kittens.

There may be a medical reason for the food obsession such as parasite infestations, diabetes, and thyroid conditions but this cat looks healthy and normal except for his obsession to eat. I lean towards a mental health issue rather than a physical health problem and I also lean towards a kitten issue as mentioned.

Home alone cat turns on music and turns up the volume to the annoyance of the neighbours

LUGO, N.W. SPAIN - NEWS AND COMMENT: A home alone cat somehow turned on the music in a flat where they were living and turned up the volume. The neighbours were disturbed as it was that bad and they called the police. They arrived expecting to deal with a raucous party and difficult partygoers but there was no one home except a domestic cat. We don't know the name of the cat and we don't know anything about their owner but the news media has dubbed the cat "Feline DJ". News media reports that the volume was turn to the maximum.

Home alone cat turns on music and turns up the volume to the annoyance of the neighbours. Credit as per the image.

Comment: I suppose we have to guess how it happened. The cat jumps up onto a sideboard where the music stereo device is situated. They climb onto the device and push the on button. The hind leg is dragged across the volume dial turning it up. That's a wild guess but it's a possibility. It is worth mentioning that the cat must've been badly disturbed as well because they wouldn't have a clue why the noise existed or what the noise was all about. Loud, unfamiliar noise is concerning to cats or downright frightening. So, it wasn't just the neighbours who were fed up with the noise but the culprit who created it as well.