Covering Up Food?

After eating their can food treat in the mornings and evenings, my European Burmese kitties both do the 'cover up' thing over the bowls with their feet just like they do when 'covering up' in the litter box. I've never seen such a thing and was wondering if anyone else had ever seen a cat do this. My mom says it's because in the wild cats will 'cover up' their kill so no one else can get it, and then they can go back to it later. What do you guys think?

Kittie can do the funniest things sometimes!

Ivo also buries her food, but only the wet stuff. Perhaps it's because it's a lot stinkier, and triggers that hiding instinct. She is doing it a lot less the longer I've had her, though.

I just made a post about a similar thing, but I have a had few cats who do this. I've mostly only seen it done in ferals or strays. But they are doing it to try and bury their kill, and keep it from other animals.
Though if yours are purebred and/or always had a nice loving home, I guess they just felt like reverting back to their instincts I've never seen a cat who wasn't a stray/feral at one point in time do this behavior.

Oh! One of mine does this too! She is Isabel, I got her when she was 2 from a pet shelter. I never see her do it, but sometime when I am out she will find a wee piece of paper like a receipt or something from the counter or that I may have dropped and place it over her soft food. One time she pulled a sock off my clothes drying rack and placed that over her dish.

I am convinced it's a 'save it for later' thing with these 2 and they mostly do it with the canned food dishes. I always have to pick them up and clean them and just leave the dry food bowl out. They'll also do it to the dry food, mostly the kitten does it to the dry, but then they'll eat away after doing a couple 'swipes'. Too funny. I'm wondering if living in a cattery causes them to want to 'save' what they've got so no one else can get it.

You can make it easy. Take a large scarf and place it underneath the food bowl. Kitty will eat until satisfied, then cover up her food with the scarf. Later, when she wants to eat again, she uncovers it and eats, then covers it back up. I do this with two of my cats who have always covered their food. The scarfs are cheap and easy to clean and it satisfies the cat that it has done what nature intended it to do.

Thanks everyone! Good tip hissy! I guess it's a more common behavior than I realized!

I've seen Gizmo & Scooter wipe their paws on the ground after eating, as if trying to cover the leftover up. I've also seen them wipe their paws on each other as if they were trying to cover each other up!:tounge2:
I used to have a kitchen towel sitting next to their bowls, and would come in their room and see the towel sitting on top of the bowls. That was funny to see.

I have 5 Siamese's Only one does this,The female.

one of my cats does this too. it's only with his canned food and he does it when he doesn't like the food. he'll take one look at the food and then try to bury it. he's even rubbing off on my other cat who started doing it too.

I have one cat, Scooter, who does this. She also scratches the surface of her water dish like cats do in the wild to remove leaves and derbis from the surface of the water before they drink. She was a feral kitten and must of seen her mother do this and has done it ever since I've had her (since she was about 5wks. old).

It's like having a wildcat in your home and kind of cute I think.

Kyttin