Three cats (2 years, Male; 4 years, Male; 12 years, Female) one dog (12 years, Female)
The four year old cat has always been a bringer of stuff. He gets his toys and small objects and brings them to us with a loud meow.
What is this behavior? He always seems rather contented when he’s doing it, and he has taken to bringing us object after object. Tonight, he brought us two cough drops (where did he get those?), two dog toys, the dust jacket to a hardback book and a cat toy in the two hours we were watching TV.
He’s never brought us bugs or mice, but he also doesn’t go outside to find bugs or mice. He catches spiders, but he eats those.
One of our cats, Cyndi Yawper, loves to rummage around in my husband’s bins full of electronic stuff and computer parts. She will select something small and bat it around on the floor a little, then put it in her mouth and bring it to my husband or to me. She drops the object and meows in a satisfied way, as if to say “See what a good girl I am?” We assume that she is trying to provide for her family, and has the pleasant illusion that she has caught something that we’ll find tasty.
murphy, my elderly tuxedo cat, still has a thing for my slippers. if i leave the closet door open, he zeroes in on one of several pairs of my deerfoams (forms?) slippers and makes off with one or more of them. he’s been doing it for 20 years.
he doesn’t bring them to me, he just… absconds with them, usually to his lair beneath my office computer desk, and stockpiles them.
I had a kitty who loved to play fetch. It was her idea; she’d drop her foil ball in front of me and yow at me to tell me that I needed to toss it so she could play fetch. Not only that, but she’d be quite put out if I didn’t throw it as far as I could - preferably out the door of the room and down the stairs.
Could be your kitty keeps bringing you new things thinking ‘one of these days these bipeds will finally figure out that they’re supposed to play fetch with me’.
One of my boys brings me cough drops, he wants me to throw them so he can chase them. Thus is common. Unusual for cats, he also often brings them back to be tossed again, that is to say he is playing Fetch like a dog!
Pixel swipes headbands off the hook in the wife’s bathroom and brings them to me to throw for her. She is quite the little fetcher. Her sister Havoc prefers to swipe magnets off the fridge and deposit them in the bed. They just want to show that they could earn their keep if they were so inclined.
I think you’ve found the stock answer to any cat behaviour question. Whatever the little furball may be doing, the answer as to why it’s doing that is “Cats are weird”.
That being said, while I don’t currently have any cats myself, my parents’ one cat likes to carry toy mice around in his mouth for a bit, then go drown them in his water dish. If he’s feeling particularly playful, he’ll then fish it out and deposit it in the food dish, so you now have a wet mouse with bits of cat food stuck all over it. Aren’t cats fun?
At our house recently, Bob-the-Cat, has been fetching stuff when we are not at home and putting it in front of his favorite window. Usually it is some piece of clothing of my wife’s. On occassion it is something of mine. Once we are home he has no use for it, but if we are late getting home, I promise something will be out in that spot.
It could be worse. My husband’s cat would steal his socks and underpants and hide them in my coat (sleeves and pockets). She gave that up a few years ago in favor of sleeping face-down in his shoes, and then putting dead mice in them.
