Over the last few months my cat, Pepper, has developed a strange way of eating her dry food. Instead of eating like a normal cat, i.e., shoving her face in the bowl and chowing down the way she used to, she now takes her paw and daintily pulls out one or two kibbles and either eats them with her paw if she can manage to hold on to them, or more often, eats them off the floor where they fall. No one else I’ve spoken to about it has ever had or seen a cat who did this. Any one else’s cat do this, or have other odd eating habits?
My cat has a penchant for eating my shamrock. And bugs. And the plastic ring off milk cartons. And rubber bands. And pieces of paper, including used kleenexes and toilet paper. And chewing bits off of cardboard boxes. And plastic bags. And string. Etc, etc, etc.
Batcat & Incerta do that. Bat is better at holding on to things, but she’ll eat it off the floor if she has too. Anything but straight out of the dish. They also drink by dipping their (left, always left) paw into water & licking it dry. MonsterKitty watches them with a “you’ve GOT to be kidding” look on his face – but he has a hissy if the dry kibble is not perfectly level in **his ** dish, and drinks only from drippy faucets. Preferably, one certain drippy faucet. Way back when, when he was an outdoors cat, he’d come inside to potty in his box.
My cats are spoiled, and just a tad OCD. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I once made the mistake of leaving a bowl of beef stew where Gweniever could reach it. I came back in the room to catch her carefully scooping carrots out of the stew with her paw and ignoring the chunks of beef. I was so stunned I stood there and watched as she ate every carrot in the bowl, then proceeded to have an after-dinner bath. Didn’t eat any of the beef, or the potatoes.
Misty used to drink like that-I can’t remember which paw she used. (Unlike humans, most cats are left-handed).
Maggie goes for people food-she’ll grab something she likes and take off with it. The funniest thing was a huge chunk of ham that my father was carving. Just this tiny little kitten with this enormous hunk of meat hanging from her teeth. It was hysterical. Well, I thought it was-my father didn’t.
My dearly departed Peaches would pretty much only drink water if it was dripping from the bathroom sink faucet. It was a habit he picked up in the apartment I had when I first got him as a kitten, which had a perpetually dripping bathroom sink.
When he was forced to endure the barbaric experience of drinking from a bowl :eek:, he would dip his paw in and lick it off.
Dexter has the ability of leaving two drops of water on the tip of his nose every time he takes a drink.
Porkchop will fish a kibble out of her bowl and flick it across the room, then chase it like mad, “kill” it and eat it, then trot back to the bowl to repeat the process.
With all that exercise, I’m not sure how she still has her pendulous gut, but she does.
Mine likes to scratch the area around the bowl as if she’s hiding her food with clumps of dirt.
I don’t think she realizes that’s carpet down there, NOT dirt. And besides, even if it were; Do you really want clumps of dirt in your food bowl? :dubious:
Even with a cat’s intelligence, I think this would be something easy enough to figure out.
I guess not.
Also Giant_Spongess I’ve never met a cat who didn’t go apeshit over those rings off the milk jugs!!
They’re almost as entertaining as watching my cats go nuts over those whacky-wall-climbers if anybody remembers those.
Pixel sometimes eats by sticking his face in the bowl, but often reaches in, flicks out a kibble, eats it with his paw or off the floor, and then reaches in with his other paw. that’s right, my kitty is ambipawdrous
sometimes i wonder if these aren’t exercises designed to increase dexterity … heaven help us when they learn how to use a can opener !
I’ve had both cats and dogs who’ve done this from time to time, especially when I’ve changed their food.
My cat will do the drinking by licking off a dipped paw thing from time to time. It seems to be an experimental method with him. If I take a bath (rare; I almost always shower instead) he must come and sit on the edge of the tub staring alternately at me and the water. He can’t quite believe his eyes – I’ve voluntarily immersed myself in what appears to be - dips paw in tub – water – licks off paw. It is water! He’ll continue to watch me carefully until I get out of the tub, alternating between being horrified and thinking humans are just really, really stupid.
My in-law’s cat has to “kick start” his tongue before drinking. He’ll paw at the floor a few times then start drinking. It looks like he’s trying to kickstart a motorcycle.
One of our cats likes to put both front paws up on the edge of the dish to drink. He also likes to scratch at the bowl before drinking, and dip his paw in, though he doesn’t drink that way. As a result of all this pawing, we bought a heavy double dish setup with a rubber base, otherwise the water would be all over the floor.
My Mojo does this on occasion. Quite entertaining if it’s just one little piece. Kinda maddening when there has been a spill and he jumps in the middle of it all and goes nuts.
Norman, he who has the pendulous gut, likes to lie down to eat. Yep, he’s a lazy bastard.
