Cats are silly. Cats are cute. Cats seem to love doing things that make us say, “Awwwww.” Cats carry things around in their mouths, which looks funny and makes us laugh. One thing that I’ve written about before is Chase’s penchant for carrying my hair ties around in his mouth. He also cries loudly for me, which he does, I think, because he knows I’ll come to where he is (he used to bring the hair ties right to my feet, but doesn’t do that anymore). What happens when he can’t find a hair tie, though?
It’s funny when my cats carry things around
He makes do with something else, like an old foam ball toy, or one of our hand wraps. He’s been known to carry a small, rolled up ACE bandage around like this, too. I have had so much trouble catching him on video carrying something around in his mouth, but I was recently successful. I found him at the top of the stairs with an old ball in his mouth, and he didn’t seem to want to drop it. Watch the video below:
Why do cats carry things around?
Cats carry things around like this for various reasons, which usually boil down to bringing us a gift, or finding a suitable place to hide or bury their prey. For example, one of Chase’s favorite toys is a mousie attached to a string, which is attached to a stick. It’s a homemade wand toy. He loves catching the mousie in his mouth, and then walking off with it. Where does he take it? Usually to a pair of my boots, where he then “buries” it.
Cats are only partly domesticated, but even fully domesticated, they would still be creatures of instinct. Carrying things around and looking for suitable places for them, or delivering them to the “alpha” of their home, are catering to the more wild parts of their instincts. Cats carry things around because it caters to their instincts. In short, they do it because it they’re cats.
I had a cat named Peanut. She would always go to my daughter’s room upstairs and carry rolled up socks and gather them under the table and cry. She would sit with all the socks for quite a while. She was spayed as a kitten. It seemed like these were her babies.
Coco a male cat would always carry around my daughter’s Barbie dolls.
The socks may well have been her babies. She might also see them as food for her babies, and when she cries, she’s calling to her babies to let them know food is around. When I was a kid, we had a cat that did that. I don’t remember if our vet told my parents that’s what she was doing, or if they just assumed, but it seems like mothering behavior of one sort or another to me, too. Chase does it as a gift-giving thing. He’ll drop things at my feet, or where he knows I’m going to be, and wait for me to “accept” it.