When I lift up the rug to see what’s making that lump, it’s always a toy mouse or fluffy ball which RJ hid there so he can pretend to discover it later. A few years ago, it would have been Mr. Bond hiding them there.
When I have to keep looking for something I thought I’d left right here, it’s usually because there was something about it that appealed to a cat, who came along and played with it until it fell behind the dresser.
This is why I keep my car keys in my purse and don’t use bookmarks with the yarn tassels on them.
more cat pictures
Sometimes cats hide things. Sometimes, the thing hiding was a byproduct of the cat’s activity, but they didn’t do it on purpose.
All of this activity has an impact on our environment, because that is one of the things cats do.
They change their environment to be better suited to catching prey, hiding from their own predators, and getting their drinking and sleeping needs met. In the absence of real prey, they can create their own opportunities.
The bottoms of closets, beneath the couch, or behind the fridge are all places where their toys can hide. So some of their hiding, or searching hiding places, behavior is a natural instinct they will exercise whatever their circumstances.
We will keep our cat’s mind sharp, at any age, by giving them hiding opportunities.
If our cat enjoys toys and treats presented this way, we have a fun and simple way to keep our cat happy and healthy, while playing games with their head.
It just doesn’t get any better than that.
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There’s more ways to understand our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on WHY CATS DO THAT.
At my job, we got a locking cash box that had only 2 keys. We had 3 managers, so the idea was that we would swap the 2nd key between whoever closed that night to the next day’s closer. I was first up, and I didn’t put it on my keychain, as I was only going to give it to someone else the next day. But Kitten Byron had other ideas!
It was gone the next day. I crawled all over the floor, looking everywhere and groping under furniture trying to find it. I finally gave up. I had to go to work (and explain why I had no key). I’d find it when I got home. It turned out to be no big deal; we had a spare, and also discovered that our $50 cash box could be opened with a freakin’ bent paperclip.
I didn’t find the key when I got home that night, despite the most thorough search ever. I joked that I might find it in a day or 2 in the litterbox. But I didn’t. I kept looking for weeks, and it never reappeared.
I did finally find it. Just lying on the floor, out in the open. After SIX MONTHS. Byron had hidden it somewhere, kept it there, then brought it out. And a good thing, as the cheap first key had broken in half since then, and so Byron’s key replaced its replacement–which, yeah, was a bent paper clip!
I’ve known for quite some time Duhban’s a hider though not as bad as Byron. But if you leave your cellphone laying around and it rings….well have fun finding it though odds are it’s now shoved way underneath the couch.
The funny thing is that it seems to be the noise and vibration (yeah I was bored one afternoon so I did experiments) I do not know why but it’s how he is.
Still I love my ninja kitty
My gosh, how I love that Byron story. But it perfectly illustrates how cats “cache” things for future use. Which makes them pretty smart; just as smart as dogs who do it with bones.