# Cats drowning mice **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 21, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666 "2016-11-21T18:14:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/1 "2016-11-21T18:14:05Z")
My cat’s favorite toy is a little plush mouse (the latest in a series…they don’t last long). He bats them around, flings them in the air, chases them down. Much fun. On a few occasions I’ve gotten up in the morning to find a mouse floating in his water dish. (“Eeewww! Oh, it’s not real.”) I always assumed that he was flinging it around and it landed in the dish. But today, he was playing with the mouse in the usual way; but he ended by carrying it to the dish and deliberately dropping it in. Poked it with his paw a few times, and walked away. Is this related to some instinctive hunting behavior? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/2 "2016-11-21T20:05:56Z")
I don’t have an answer, but it may be more related to the dish being something like a small hole than anything to do with the water in it. I’ve had cats intentionally drop objects into my shoes before. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/3 "2016-11-21T20:11:13Z")
People drown cats, and that’s where they laerned the effectiveness of the tactic. I wonder, though, how it got passed along through generations. When you see your cat putting rocks in a bag of mice, you know you’re in trouble. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/4 "2016-11-21T20:16:12Z")
If a cat dropped a live mouse into a body of water, the mouse would just swim away. It would be very difficult for a cat to drown a mouse. Cats have much better ways to kill mice. I don’t know why the cat is doing that, but I doubt it’s related to any attempt to kill its prey. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/5 "2016-11-21T20:20:59Z")
I had a cat that carried a rubber band around as a toy. She would put it in her water bowl. ---
**Author:** ![Skinnybones\_Lampshade](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skinnybones_lampshade/32/2872_2.png) [@Skinnybones\_Lampshade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skinnybones_Lampshade)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/6 "2016-11-21T20:26:47Z")
Just chiming in to say that one of my three cats does the exact same thing quite regularly, and I’ve often wondered what instinct is ingrained in him that causes him to bat his toy mouse around for a while and then, after a certain seemingly “correct” length of time, pause and stare penetratingly at the mouse, then pick it up with a sense of purpose and stride over and place it very deliberately into the water dish, give it a couple of pushes, and then stalk away and not look back. So your cat and mine share this behaviour. Now if we only knew why! 🙂 Here’s hoping someone reading this knows. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/7 "2016-11-21T20:28:42Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I had a cat that carried a rubber band around as a toy. She would put it in her water bowl. Hmmm. I wonder if it’s hoarding behavior. The cat sees the bowl as His, and the mouse as His, and wants to stash the mouse in a safe place for later. The cat (same cat) does this kind of thing with wine corks, but not with his water dish. We moved the sofa away from the wall and found 20 corks that had previously been in a decorative bowl in the kitchen. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/8 "2016-11-21T20:33:09Z")
Maybe he’s trying to flavor his water. Mmmm, mouse-flavored water… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/9 "2016-11-21T20:34:08Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Hmmm. I wonder if it’s hoarding behavior. The cat sees the bowl as His, and the mouse as His, and wants to stash the mouse in a safe place for later. I think we had other cats at the time who used the same bowl. > [@jsc1953](#): > > The cat (same cat) does this kind of thing with wine corks, but not with his water dish. We moved the sofa away from the wall and found 20 corks that had previously been in a decorative bowl in the kitchen. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mind\_the\_gap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@mind\_the\_gap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mind_the_gap)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/10 "2016-11-21T20:40:27Z")
Kitty au jus!🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/11 "2016-11-21T20:49:27Z")
> [@mind\_the\_gap](#): > > Kitty au jus!🙂 Wouldn’t that be “rodent an jus”? ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/12 "2016-11-21T20:51:32Z")
Some cats do that. Yes I’ve seen that behavior. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/13 "2016-11-22T00:22:07Z")
Mouse tea? I’ve had cats do the same thing with their toys of choice. Usually rubber bands or hair ties, sometimes the little bits of paper that the cat Just Knows is an alien race hell bent on conquering Earth, all murdered heinously, then discarded in the water bowl. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/14 "2016-11-22T03:08:16Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > an alien race hell bent on conquering Earth, all murdered heinously, then discarded in the water bowl. As a warning to others. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/15 "2016-11-22T03:23:17Z")
The cat is testing you. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/16 "2016-11-22T10:12:57Z")
Cleaning perhaps? I have a vague memory of seen animals, on documentaries, clean their food in water, but I don’t remember which animals. Monkeys certainly do it, and I’ve personally seen them rinsing food before eating it. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/17 "2016-11-22T13:33:07Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Cleaning perhaps? > I have a vague memory of seen animals, on documentaries, clean their food in water, but I don’t remember which animals. > Monkeys certainly do it, and I’ve personally seen them rinsing food before eating it. Before or after they throw their fecal matter? ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/18 "2016-11-22T14:28:23Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Cleaning perhaps? > I have a vague memory of seen animals, on documentaries, clean their food in water, but I don’t remember which animals. > Monkeys certainly do it, and I’ve personally seen them rinsing food before eating it. Raccoons. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/19 "2016-11-22T15:23:53Z")
Isn’t about mice. My cats do it with a lot of their toys. Got this yellow flower refrigerator magnet. When one of them manages to get it off the fridge, the next place I’m guaranteed to find it will be the water dish. My girl also likes playing with this piece of Christmas ribbon and it keeps ending up in the water dish. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666/20 "2016-11-22T16:21:52Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Raccoons. Want to confuse the hell out of a raccoon? [Give it some cotton candy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkTzDh8IKNU) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cats-drowning-mice/772666.md?page=2)