Their Thing for String

What is it with cats and string?

Why are cats helpless before yarn, string, tinsel, and electrical wires?

We need to understand their natural habitat to unravel this mystery.

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Cats have a vision system that is keyed to motion. Nothing is better designed to catch a kitty’s eye that something that twists and turns and offers motion all along its length. Making a string shiny simply multiplies the interest embedded along its length.

Then, there’s snakes. Most of us are fortunate enough to not have snakes appear in our dwelling, and so our cat’s interest remains inexplicable. But for cats in the wild, this would have been a constant worry; well worth being alert to. Strongly Alpha cats, those with an Oriental influence, and thus, more likely to encounter snakes in their more tropical climates; these are cats who can’t leave certain long and twisty shapes alone.

That’s because they are driven by their instincts to either kill or discourage snakes from hunting in their territory. Snakes would eat up the available prey. Snakes would endanger the cat who hunts such prey.

So if we have a cat who won’t get out from behind the stereo or computer equipment, this is a cat who is begging to have a snake substitute made available to them.

Of course, if our cat is happy with a length of yarn, especially with a toddler attached, more power to them. But some cats just adore the chance to wrestle with rubber reptiles of whatever genus, and we should indulge them.

Just another service we offer.

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There’s more ways to care for our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on CAT CARE.