Meowing (crying) with toy in mouth

by Julie
(Miami Beach)

Our cat Napoleon, LOVES his snake toy. He carries it around with him, sleeps with it, even puts it in his food bowl sometimes.

We have to put it away at times because as soon as he finds it he carries it around in his mouth and cries loudly and drawn out as if he is sad or upset or hurt. It's actually disconcerting to hear because I feel like he is trying to communicate with us and he sounds so sad.

Also he sometimes drops the snake toy by us as to give us a gift, I think. If you toss it for him he gives you a dirty look and sometimes makes a worried sounding noise before he takes off to get it. I get the feeling he really doesn't want us to throw it but he has no problem attacking it either.

What does this behavior mean?


Answer by Kate

Hi
Well I have herad of this behavior before and it isn't anything to worry about. The behavior is often associated with the hunting instinct and often dometic cats will act out hunting and stalking behavior with their toys etc. Even though he has the prey as it were in his mouth he is still imagining the whole hunting scene as it were and this could be why he is making the strange sound. the sound can sound rather mornful just like the sound of a male cat calling for a mate can sound very sad and mornful to us.

I think your cat is just being a cat and following his instincts. I really wouldn't worry.

As for the throwing issue. Well cats are not like dogs in the sense, Dogs will give you the ball because they want to play and so want you to throw it. Whereas a cat will give you gifts as a sort of sign of affection for you. So you throwing it could be seen as a bit of rejection. So instead I would accept the snake for a while but play with him with something else, like a ball etc afterwards.

At the end of the day us humans can never really know what goes on in the mnds of our feline friends. So all we can do is learn from therir natural behaviours and try to react accordingly to those cat instincts and not to try and put our own human meaning to them.

Hope I have been able to help alittle. Your cat sounds adorable. I wish my cat Little mo would play more like yours.

best wishes Kate

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