This episode of Simon’s Cat Logic, where cat expert Nicky Trevorrow explains cats’ hunting behaviour, came out back in December. However, I don’t remember ever seeing it; I just hope it’s not early onset Alzheimer’s! Or maybe the internet has given me “crazy cat lady” psychosis even though I don’t own a cat! Anyway, here it is:
Simon’s Cat: ‘Does Your Cat Bring You Gifts?’
Cat Logic: 5 Things Your Cat Does and How to Explain Them
There’s also a blog at the Simon’s Cat website, and the folks there have just put up a new post. So if you’ve ever wondered about things like why your cat takes its food out of the bowl, then eats it off the floor, check it out: ‘Cat Logic: 5 Things Your Cat Does and How to Explain Them‘.
Thank you again Simon Tofield and the team at Simon’s Cat for bringing us this wonderful respite from the real world.
Hmmmm…”Does your cat bring you gifts?” was not answered in the video. I can tell you one incident from long ago in which this occurred. Our female cat had brought in a few dead animals, like field mice and small birds and left them on the kitchen floor. Once she brought a chipmunk which was alive and dropped it in front of me. I foolishly picked it up to take it outside and it embedded it’s front chiseler teeth into my thumb. It hurt like hell. After a moment of shock, I placed may aching hand on the floor and waited for the critter to release. It finally did and I found a box to corral it and dispose of it outside.
My explanation is the cat has an instinct to bring home food, some of it still moving around, to feed and train it’s young in the hunting art.
Yeah – I got that too – that they didn’t actually answer the question.
If we didn’t love our cats so much we’d think they were horrible animals the way they play with their prey. I think they’re bringing the food home for later, and if it’s alive but disabled it stays fresh. :-/
I can see the rational for that. I know restaurants that keep lobster and trout fresh in tanks. I only hope they don’t adopt even more dramatic measures and keep cattle penned in the ally behind the dinner. 😎
Fish and ‘seafood’ is generally better when fresh, meat on the other hand -and game in particular-, improves with ageing, it ‘matures’. So you don’t have to fear the cattle-slaughter in the alley behind the dinner. It can conveniently be done at a distance, at the slaughterhouse.?
There must be some chemical/biological explanation for this difference.
It is probably also related to Jerry Coyne’s ‘controversial hypothesis’ that people generally prefer meat to fish.
There is a province in India that just passed a law making it punishable by life in prison if you kill a cow. Is there a happy in-between? 😉
There’s a theory that the reason that Jews forbade pork etc is the sound a pig makes when being slaughtered (using the methods of the time). They scream just like a human would and the sound is just too distressing.
Or the Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Douglas Adams), where the cow actually comes out recommending bits of its body! 🙂
I never read the book, but I’ve heard the references. 😎
It was not really a cow, but a slightly bovine-like critter, IIRC. I mean it could talk. One of the passages one tends not to forget, edged in your brain. Brilliant.