"Handedness" in cats. Which paw does your cat prefer?

Just like humans, cats have a preferred "hand." My Pretzel, for instance, was a leftie. Even though she had nerve damage in her left arm, that gave her a limp and made it harder for her to feel things with that paw, when she reached under a door to try to catch a toy or piece of paper on the other side of the door, she reached with her left paw.

Jasmine also prefers her left paw.

Most humans are right handed; it's the sourse of words like dexterous (literal meaning -- right handed) and sinister (literal meaning -- left handed, because we're suspicious of anything unusual). It is my theory, based on an extremely small sample, that most cats are left pawed. So let's test it. Is your cat a rightie or a leftie?

We can start the count with the only three cats I've had since I began noticing this:

Pretzel -- Left pawed.
Floppy -- Left pawed.
Jasmine -- Left pawed.

So far, that's 3 Left, 0 Right. Let's see whether we can get a large enough sample to have some real meaning, because 100% of 3 is still only 3.

Margret

Any tips on how to tell which paw a cat prefers?

My observations leave me to think my cat is left pawed, too.

misterwhiskers said:

My observations leave me to think my cat is left pawed, too.

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Okay, Left 4, Right 0.

Margret

Tempest seems to be ambidextrous. She grabs for things with whichever paw is closest to it. She is super agility girl, she does crazy things like just hang out clinging to the gate in front of her door, using only 2 paws to hold on as she grooms - UPSIDE DOWN!! She will reach to play with things with her back feet just as often as with her front feet. It's pretty crazy the kind of acrobatics she can do. Maybe I should call her quadridextrous?

Sinbad has a 'tactical' paw (the left one) and an 'emotional' paw (the right one). It's interesting to see this thread because the first thing I was able to use to read how he was feeling was his right paw.  When he's feeling uncertain/nervous about something, he sort of leans forward onto his right paw, curling it at the first joint and uncurling it. Over and over until he decides what to do. He expresses love by reaching out with his right paw - either waving it at you if you're out of reach, or resting it on you if he's close enough.  In the middle of a cuddle he'll often reach out with that same paw and spread his toes all the way out and 'grab' on to me with them. He doesn't do the typical 'cat kiss' of eye blinks, so far as I can tell that open toed grab or little reaching wave is his method of telling me he loves me. When he's enjoying a good scritch, his right paw sort of lifts and rubs against your hand as you scritch him.  We call it the happy paw.

His left paw is what he uses to knock toys around/open cabinets/shred paper/etc.

I've known for a long time that cats can be dominant in one paw, just like people I first noticed it with Chynna when she came to live with me in 1992.  My previous kitty did things with her right paw, but Chynna always favoured her right one.  The vet assured me that just like people, cats can be either right or left pawed.

Abby = left

Katie = left

Spencer = right

My RB kitty Chynna was a lefty

Here is another little tidbit of fun information.

Science tells us cats can see some colours, and can tell the difference between red, blue and yellow lights, as well as between red and green lights. And that cats are able to distinguish between blues and violets better than between colours near the red end of the spectrum.  While that may be true, both Chynna and Abby favoured red furry mice over any other colour.  I could throw a handful of varying colours, and they would both seek out the red one the majority of the time.  Abby loves her red furry mice and springs.

Spence favours browns and beiges.

Katie has zero preference. So long as you are playing with her, she's good with whatever!  lol

Okay, that comes to 7 Left, 1 Right, 1 Quadridextrous (a major accomplishment), and I don't know how to classify Sinbad. I've never heard of an emotional paw before.

My mother tells me that she knew immediately that I would be strongly right handed because when she nursed me I would always use my right hand to touch her face. That sounds like Sinbad's emotional paw, except that for me it really is associated with right handedness. Puzzling.

Margret

I can't edit my previous post. I realized just now I made a blunder

 

Natalie_ca said:

 
I've known for a long time that cats can be dominant in one paw, just like people I first noticed it with Chynna when she came to live with me in 1992.  My previous kitty did things with her right paw, but Chynna always favoured her right one.  The vet assured me that just like people, cats can be either right or left pawed.

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That should say:

My previous kitty did things with her right paw, but Chynna always favoured her left one. 

Natalie_ca said:

I can't edit my previous post. I realized just now I made a blunder


 

That should say:


My previous kitty did things with her right paw, but Chynna always favoured her left one. 

Click to expand...

That's okay. The rest of the message made your meaning clear. It did not effect the count.

Margret

Aya is right handed. She has this characteristic pose where she sits, but instead of having both front paws planted like most cats she raises the right one a little expectantly. I think its also the paw she bats things with first, including her meowmy!

My lovely Bold is obviously right pawned. How do I know why? Because he punch me on the face so I can let him under the mattress. He. got a nice jab by the way.

Chula is definitely left pawed. She hands it to me whenever she wants to play.

Margret said:

Okay, that comes to 7 Left, 1 Right, 1 Quadridextrous (a major accomplishment), and I don't know how to classify Sinbad. I've never heard of an emotional paw before.

My mother tells me that she knew immediately that I would be strongly right handed because when she nursed me I would always use my right hand to touch her face. That sounds like Sinbad's emotional paw, except that for me it really is associated with right handedness. Puzzling.

Margret

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Yeah, Sinbad is a very odd and complicated kitty. But he definitely does the emotional/play split between his paws. If he's sprawled on the floor and I throw a toy, he reaches with the left. If I walk by, he reaches for me with the right. I just love his little spread toed grabby. It is the most endearing, adorable thing.

I do wish I had a way to continuously record Tempest's room 24/7. I can never get pictures of the amazing things she does because my approaching, with or without a camera, causes her to run over in hopes of belly scritches or treats.  This morning she was hanging upside on the gate by her back paws while she used her front paws to bat at and tease Sinbad, but when i tried to get piccies, they both turned and begged for treats. 

Cadbury is ambidextrous. If he can see an item he ALWAYS grabs with both paws at the same time.

Did the "under the door" test and he reach under with both! LOL He reached the furthest with his right paw, but if he couldn't grab with it he reached under with the left (and kept the right under). Other times he reached with left first but would not reach as far with it. Most of the time he shoves both paws under at same time. He's a weirdo HAHA

Tuck doesn't seem to have a dominant paw. I've been watching him with his foraging toys and he seems more likely to use his left paw on the toys where he has to 'dig' the food out, and his right on the toys where he has to 'bat' it out. But it's a very slight difference beccause he'll use both paws on both toys.

Natalie_ca said:

Science tells us cats can see some colours, and can tell the difference between red, blue and yellow lights, as well as between red and green lights. And that cats are able to distinguish between blues and violets better than between colours near the red end of the spectrum.  While that may be true, both Chynna and Abby favoured red furry mice over any other colour.  I could throw a handful of varying colours, and they would both seek out the red one the majority of the time.  Abby loves her red furry mice and springs.


Spence favours browns and beiges.


Katie has zero preference. So long as you are playing with her, she's good with whatever!  lol

Click to expand...

What science really can't tell us is how important color is to them. Have you seen The Cats' House? It's a book, but you can also find it on YouTube. The authors decided, because of how important colors are to humans, to, among other things, repaint their house in brilliant colors so their cats could get more enjoyment from the colors, since science also tells us that cats don't see color as well as humans do. I'm sure their cats enjoy the changes they made to the structure of their house, which were extensive, but I seriously doubt that they care that much about the colors. The authors, on the other hand, have made quite a few royalties from sales of the book, and quite a bit of money modifying other people's houses (and at least one shelter, though they may have done that one for free).

My personal expectation would be that cats would prefer browns, grays, and whites in cat toys, because those are the colors of small prey animals, but that's just an expectation, an assumption on my part, not based on any real data.

Margret

Okay, so far we have 8 Lefties, 3 Righties, 2 Ambidextrous, 1 Quadridextrous, and 1 Unclassifiable. Still not enough for a truly valid scientific sample (not that I'm a scientist), but definitely interesting. It appears that left-pawed is the default, but not nearly as much as right-handedness is the default in humans, and the number of ambi/quadri-dextrous cats is quite impressive. In fact, I note that Lefties are only a tiny bit more than 50% of our sample size.

Margret

This is interesting!! Nora is definitely right-pawed! Always starts playing with her right, and swats at the vacuum cleaner with her right paw

That brings it to 8 Lefties, 4 Righties, 2 Ambidextrous, 1 Quadridextrous, and 1 Unclassifiable. Left-pawed cats are now exactly 50% of the total, and in cats who prefer one paw over the other they come to 2/3, with right-pawed cats at 1/3. Of all cats in the sample, half are left-pawed, 1/4 are right-pawed, and the other quarter are ambi/quadri-dextrous or unclassifiable. And it's still not a statistically significant sample, but I'm surprised by how many righties we're finding.

Margret