Eating with paw!

About a month ago, one cat (Moe) in a 2-cat household started to eat his wet food by scooping it out of his dish with his paw and licking it off his paw, with no signs of distress or anything. His brother & housemate doesnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t do this. The two of them are very much friends, and nobody seems upset, and their food hasnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t been changed or anything - itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s just like Moe decided that this was the way to eat wet food.

The dish itself is a normal cat food bowl just like Caspar's (his brother), and Moe didn't seem to have difficulty eating normally - he just switched...

He eats dry food normally. As a little experiment, I recently repositioned his wet-food dish so he would have to bring his paw over the water dish to get a load of food to his mouth; Moe still insists on using his paw, despite the fact he makes more "wet food soup" than gets food to his mouth. (I moved the dish back where it had been out of sympathy.)

He has always been a cat who likes to carry things around in his mouth, like toys, tissues, etc. But I have never known a cat (and Iâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]ve known lots of cats) to just start eating via paw (I suppose one could train a cat to, but this was totally unprovoked). Anyone else ever heard of a cat doing this?

I'm sure it's not a problem. I've discovered my cat doing that too. I feed him wet food and he'll sit there and scoop it off onto his paw and lick it off his paw (and if he doesn't get it all, he flings it off his paw lol). Sometimes he does that with "people" food when he's taking it off a plate (when nobody's looking lol). I like to think that cats like to think they are every other animal but a cat.

Yes, it's not uncommon, particularly with some breeds. One of our Maine Coons eats wet food with her paw quite often - and she also fishes out a biscuit and throws it around the room, chasing it. Can be messy when she chooses a lump of wet food, but we figure it's just an indoor cat satisfying her hunting instincts, and put up with it!

Oh, and she also likes to carry toys in her mouth - maybe it's a linked habit?

I wouldn't worry anyway - just enjoy your cat's unusual dinnertime habit!

Bruce&Sheila

Dushka does it quite often, and Wellington occasionally. I don't know why - it is as if they just need a change.

All of mine do it but not consistantly, normally they do it with chicken I have chopped up for them. And Kiko does it trying to eat the powdered creamer.

Thanks, all, for the quick responses! I wasn't worried, I'd just never known a cat to do it - don't know about the breed-specific - these two guys were part of a 4-kitten-plus-mom feral cat family I took in and, while they are certainly huge dudes now, their breeding is definitely not Maine Coonish.

In fact, I had a very interesting discussion with a cat geneticist in England about the possibility of their having a common father, given the four kittens include a tortie (Sigourney the Bold), a color-point (Caspar), a long-hair black and white (Piglet a/k/a Mr. Magnificent), and Moe, the plain ol' black and white short-hair - and Mom (Myrtle) is gray and white...turns out a common father is possible (given lots of inbreeding) and would have to be an orange tabby! Who'd a thunk it? Well, if Moe has plain looks, he's more than made up for it with personality, including using his paw as eating utensil!

In case you wonder about that 2-cat household bit - I couldn't afford to keep all the brood, and so my mother kindly took Moe and Caspar, but I keep up to date on all their activities!

This is my first post in this forum and I've read several other posts with interest - seems like a great group here!

Thats neat. I acquired my cats the very same way. My Mother cat is Easy who is semi feral and the rest are her babys (who are now 4)

I used to think the food all over the floor was my hubby being lazy and pouring the food in the bowl instead of scooping, but a few days ago I found Mellow trying to scoop it out and eat it from the floor....I think the cats just have funny quirks just like we do

My Zane does this with his water. He'll dip his paw into it and lick it.

Zoey does this ... it is a hoot but a issue at clean up time///