It occurs to me that when the housecat is going after a dangly toy / sheet of paper / dustbunny, etc., he’s basically doing all the same movements and reactions he’d be doing if he were going after a bird or mouse or something.
At the same time, if two kittens are playing, it’s pretty clearly distinct from fighting — that is to say, cats can tumble over each other and scrum while not having their claws out.
So… when a cat sees a bird, does it think “No more games, it’s hunting time, I’m going to f*** that bird up”… or is it more primal and just “Something moved. I must hit stuff that moves”, and to a cat a bird and a ball are indistinguishable?
Do cats really make a distinction between playing and hunting? Or is everything just faster pussycat kill kill kill
I’d say they do; I’d have many, many more serious scars if they didn’t (my hands and feet would have been killed multiple times). I think you’ve kind of got it right, with “No more games…” Watching my cats, they give many signs (verbal and non-verbal) of what their intent is - you know when a cat is playing, and when things have gotten serious.
It is a learned behavior. Kittens don’t automatically understand the rules. They learn over time that if they don’t keep the claws in, they’ll get swatted for real by the big cats (or big people).
All play behaviors in carnivores are based on natural hunting behaviors. Cats (and dogs) learn from social interaction, starting at just a couple weeks old, how to inhibit aggressive behaviors so they don’t hurt playmates, and also how to communicate effectively so there are no misunderstandings during play or greeting that will lead to injury.
Cats (and dogs) who don’t get adequate socialization as kittens often grow up to be unusually agressive/rough and will hurt others when they try to ‘play’. I have a cat with this problem.
Cats definitely know the difference… but sometimes if it’s a really exciting toy, like the Cat Dancer, they seem to forget it and use claws. They still don’t act like it’s something to really eat, though.
I’ve had two Bengals for quite awhile. Once a mouse got into the room and although they were super-interested in it they still treated it like a squeak toy. IOW they only batted it around or sometimes pinned it but they never killed it. They’d never been taught the ‘kill drive’. Which was fine with me! Although the poor little mouse certainly had an ordeal I caught him and tossed it outside.
Of course the damn thing came back a few days latter! Both my cats were asleep and I shushed the stupid thing away before either of them woke up (I wasn’t in the mood for Wild Kingdom reruns)!
They know the difference, if appropriately socialized, between playing and for real fighting. OTOH, cats who have never been taught to hunt, in my experience, often have no idea about actually killing prey.
Some years back we noticed our totally indoor cats observing a corner of the front hall with great interest. There was the tiniest and most terrified mousie you ever saw, trapped in a corner, hopping up and down like a cartoon creature. Our sweet Sara would every so often reach out and pat it with a gentle soft paw, no claws at all. The dumb Skippy just sat there and watched. I threw a towel over it and threw it outside.
In previous years we had indoor/outdoor cats who explored the outdoors from kittenhood and they had darn well learned what to do with a mouse. Bite that little neck, chew up everything but the tail and some of the innards, and then throw up all of it on the living room rug a couple of hours later.
The chase and catch thing is an instinct. Hunting is another thing altogether.
Probably 30+ years ago, my parents had a Tonkinese that was never taught to hunt. Some sort of medium-size bug was walking across the floor and she gave it a good “bop” with her paw. The smug expression on her face soon turned to sheer terror as she realized it was still moving under her paw. She started flailing her paw around to try to dislodge it. After cat and bug were separated, the cat ran and hid under the bed and the bug continued its journey across the living room floor.
This is the same cat from my earlier cat/mouse story - my Mom was doing laundry in the basement and noticed the dog smiling at something. She turned to look at where the dog was looking and saw a mouse, went “eek!”, and jumped on top of the washing machine. After she calmed down a bit, she went upstairs to get the cat and put it in the laundry room. The cat sees the mouse, goes"eek!", and jumps on top of the washing machine.
On the other hand, this cat had no problem picking on critters her own size or bigger. As background, the house had a leaky roof and loads of raccoons around. As my parents were bringing groceries upstairs from the car, the noise apparently startled a raccoon who then ran across the soft spot in the roof. The racoon fell onto the grocery bag my Mom was carrying. My Mom screamed, dropped the bag, and fainted. The cat came out of nowhere in a blur and chased the raccoon the length of the house onto the back porch, where my Dad got a broom and launched it off into space. My Mom had to be sedated, the cat got fleas from the raccoon and needed to be dipped, and my Dad just sort of shrugged at “another day in the country” and went back to work.
If you watch a cat look at his/her whistkers. This is the best indication of mood. When the whiskers stick out in front of the cat, and the more playful the cat, the further away from the face will the whiskers be.
If a cat is serious, the whiskers go right back against the face.
Still a cat needs to be taught how to kill. When I was young I had a cat that caught things, but she never killed any of them. She would just hold it in her mouth and bring it to us. Then we’d see her and she’d spit it out and BOOM, instant bird flying around your house
My cat is a kick-ass hunter and will not stop pursuing until he kills the live thing he’s chasing (or it gets away).
OTOH, if he is playing with a feather or catnip toy, he will walk away from it and come back to it. While he does some “hunting behavior” with the toy, it doesn’t compare in intensity to a genuine hunt.
