Trying to bury food?

Why would a cat do this? She tries and tries to bury her food, and ends up spilling everything. I wouldn't normally care, but now it's the spilling of the wet food and water that's bothering me.
I've bought heavier dishes to see if that will help, but she is still trying to bury and overturn them.
Any ideas?

has she always done this or is it a new development? Maverick started to do this during her last week of pregnancy and has stopped now. was wondering if i was a coinsidence or if they were trying to mask the smell in fear of predators?

I don't know why they do it but all of my cats do that, it drives me batty sometimes because they get so obsessive with it and I have to shoo them away from the food!

Ya, it's been for a long time.

so is it normal?

i have one who diggs in her food like she wants to potty in it.
does it mean the think the food smells?


Ashley

Mine does that too. I remember seeing on a nature show that leopards bury the rest of thier kill after they have eaten thier fill so they can save it for later and it keeps other animals from detecting and taking the food away. I guess cat's must still have that instinct.

Do they have the instinct to take a mouthfull of food fromthe bowl and dump it in the floor toplay with it?


Ashely

haha mine does that too-with the dry food but not to play with it but to eat it. She takes a mouth full and throws it down and then eats each little piece from the floor.

of course that's when she actually will eat dry food which is not often- the spoiled brat!

There was a thread on this a while ago, and the experts said it means the cat is trying to hide the food from predators so that she can come back later to finish it. Cats in the wild bury their prey. Mine do it too, though not to excess, just a paw scrape or two and then they leave the bowl. But if they want to save it, it also means they enjoyed it!

My Marcellus does this. He gets quite frantic about it sometimes, it's actually quite funny to watch. Poor guy. We ended up buying metal bowls with the rubber on the bottom and that solved the problem of spilling and breaking. He loves to knock things down.

I just found you folks on Friday night and I have learned so much. Nytro does this too, including taking the food out of the bowl and eating it from the floor. I thought it was odd but now I realize he is probably "normal". Laurey

Paige does this.. also, she tries to bury when she has a hairball, or if Gibby's eaten too fast and puked, she tries to bury that too.