Over the last 5 days our older cat (who no longer likes to play) has started bringing me assorted cat toys and other items. Lots of them. Today she brought me 7 different things. It’s really cute because she tries meowing through whatever she’s carrying here. In fact just now, she brought me the cap to one of my medicine bottles (which had been downstairs for several months). Is this because she wants to play? I try playing with her for a bit, but she generally just runs under the kitchen table.
Is she just telling me she’s happy and is trying to bring me the closest thing to a dead animal she can get?
Cats never do this when they’re sick do they? She’s actually eating better than ever (since we got our new kitten this summer), and she seems pretty content. It’s just surprising it is happening all of the sudden.
Probably wants attention and affection, or is responding to attention and affection given to her. My inside cat (self imposed, he doesn’t like the rain, the big whiner, which is also his name) tends to bring me little weird things from time to time. I usually get out the laser pen or feather on a string on a pole and play with him until he gets bored with it. Then he’s content to sit in my lap and purr.
My cat has done this since she was a kitten, and continues to do it now as a healthy adult.
The weirdest thing is that she once discovered a small stuffed animal of a dog, not intended for her, and she walks around with it in her mouth crying sometimes and will drop it off in a pile along with her other toys. It’s very sad, and very cute. I just hope she doesn’t think that it’s a dead friend, but she’s had it for years, so I can’t imagine she thinks it is.
Cats have little changes in their behaviors like this all the time. They’re pretty obsessive. One cat might constantly put a toy or a piece of string in its food dish for months and then just quit. Another will always nap in the same place and then all of a sudden decide on another place. Our cat has just recently decided that he really needs to drink out of the bathroom sink and will sit in it and meow until I fill it up. This cat is nine years old and has never cared about drinking out of the sink before.
Wow, that is pretty cool. Would you take a picture and post it here? I’ll host it if you want - I’d love to see that since our cats are teriried of sink/tub.
One of my cats will only drink out of the bathtub faucet. You have to turn it on so that it’s barely dripping, and he’ll drink out of it like a drinking fountain. So we got him one of those drinking fountain water dishes, but noooo, he doesn’t like that. Only the bathtub faucet.
My other cat, who is friendly but has always been a bit skittish, suddenly decided a few weeks ago that he wants to sit on my lap while I watch TV. He has never in his life wanted to sit in anyone’s lap before; he doesn’t even like to be picked up (he’s very friendly, but scares easily). So now I’ll be sitting on the couch watching TV, and he’ll jump up to the top of the couch from behind me, and then jump into my lap. Unfortunately, he’s a large cat (~15 lbs.), so this is somewhat like having a cinderblock dropped on your legs.
So yeah–cats will sometimes start doing new things for reasons known only to themselves. It’s nothing to worry about.
Cats are territorial animals, introducing the kitten threaten’s your old cat’s territory, this includes it’s food and relationship with you and other family members. She’s probably eating more as a protective measure not because of it’s health (though that might be a beneficial side effect if she’s prone to malnutrition) and is also looking for more attention as a way of flexing it’s control over it’s territory. These behaviours will subside as the new kitten becomes accepted by the older cat. You are likely to have a fat old cat by the end of it though and you should be careful that the kitten is getting enough food.
Better toys than dead animals. I appreciate the gesture when they bring them to me, but it’s a little unnerving to kick something under your desk and look down only to see a dead bird… but yeah, it sounds like your cat just wants to get in your good graces, or stay in them ;-).
Is the cat always bringing them to the same spot? Perhaps a spot he usually naps? Could be a nesting instinct, too.
For one of our cats, the fuckbuddy is his brother. We think his neutering didn’t take 100%. Poor lil’ brother, he just sits there and takes it as his older bro jackhammers into his back, right above the tail.
A few years back, I had an orange male cat I nicknamed “abattoir” because of his propensity for murder. I would let him outside, and within a MINUTE he’d bring back the body of a mouse, shrew, bird, or snake. He didn’t eat them, he didn’t play with them, he just quickly took the critter’s life and brought us the corpse. It was disturbing. It got to the point where he was killing 6-7 things a day. Once, he even managed to nail a hummingbird. I tried keeping him indoors to prevent him from destroying the entire ecosystem, but one day he got out and never came back.
One of my own cats does this to the other cat in the house, and it’s mainly a stress reliever/pecking order thing. He’s basically saying “I’m the one in charge, buddy!”
Don’t worry, the main sign that your cat wouldn’t be neutered would be if he was spraying.
Merlin (the humper) is a nutball. It’s more a joke about the neutering, since he had the “snip the tubes but leave the balls” deal (at least, that’s how I remember them explaining it).
He does it mostly because his brother is the only one he can do it to. Our 3rd male cat wouldn’t put up with it, and the female DEFINITELY wouldn’t.
It’s so funny (to us) because we anthropomorphize Arthur’s reaction (he looks entirely like he’s silently tolerating it out of brotherly loyalty to his jerk brother). It’s also funny because Arthur can easily hold his own (which he does during the nightly “they’re brushing their teeth, it’s almost time to cat-pile on the bed for more sleep!” play fighting), he just chooses to take it. Maybe he just likes having the spot right above his tail rubbed that much that it’s worth it.
The was a six-month or so period earlier this year when our cat, Splat, would bring us LIVE mice (stunned) and just leave them in the hallway. Eventually, my wife and I figured out what was going on through direct observation: Splat would bring in the mouse, spend 20 minutes just eating the varmint’s tail, then just leave a very alive but deeply disturbed rodent for us to shoo out.
Seems he’s out of the habit now, though; last critter to be brought in the house was a month ago, and consisted of one very bloody and chewed up junco wing.
One of our cats (the older one) has the same behavior… Except for him it’s sticks. He brings in usually 2-3 sticks a night, with great fanfare, and dumps them somewhere in the house… They’re his “kills.”
Since we moved into the new house he’s only done it once, except this time it was a mouse he caught in the house.
He’s been doing it a long time and is very healthy… He’s just a little looney.
