Dunking her Mouse toy

Well, Ginger(7 month old Ocicat) has been 'perfect' until today She dunked her Mouse Toy into her water bowl ! My wife dried it out and wiped up the water off of the floor. She gave Ginger her toy back and........................5 minutes later, she did it again

Comments?

Same problem with your kittens/cats???

Dan

My boy cat does that & I have no idea why. He's eight years old now & he's done it since he was a baby. His mouse toys, any toy balls, pretty much anything he can carry to the water dish gets dunked in. I think it may be his way of "killing" it, but I'd love to hear anyone else's interpretation.

Amanda

My cats once dunked a real mouse in their water bowl. I came home to find that lovely little scene once...dead mouse floating in the water dish. I made hubby dispose of it. Yuck! They've never done it with any of their toys though. They usually don't kill the mice they catch, they just play with them and end up letting them go. So I really don't know how that mouse ended up in a water grave. Maybe they killed him and put him in, or put him in and he drowned.

I don't think it's a problem. I think it's cute!

I like to call it making tea.... the cats like catnip flavored water.

My kitty dips her paws in the waterdish and sometimes puts tree leaves that my husband tracks in after work, but hasn't done it with her toys YET.

She has a ritual where she drags her toys under the futon (her den--she sleeps and rests there), and thumps it with her feet until it's "dead." It has to be the cutest thing I've ever seen--she always looks so proud dragging it under there too!

My sweet boy, Willy, used to dunk his toys in his water bowl (or the toilet if I happened to leave the lid up). Then, he'd bring them to me soaking wet. I asked my vet about who said Willy was "drowning" his prey and bringing it to me as a gift.

I think it has to do with their problem with depth perception. Maybe something floating helps them see the water level.

In my house it's usually - how many furry mice does it take to it dry food?? Most of the time it's 3 furry mice in the bowl..

I think, too, that it has something to do with "saving" the toy for later. Your cat perceives the water dish as a safe place (a cache, I guess) where she can leave her toys and nobody else will come and steal it from her. My cats prefer knocking the water dish over and splashing in the puddles on the floor ... Who says cats don't like water?

Oh, goody! Let's play Drown The Mouse! LOL (almost sounds sort of risque, doesn't it ... the kind of game they play at parties after all the strait-laced people go home)

A few weeks ago my youngest, Marnie, had this big brown LUMP in her water bowl when I got home from work. I took one look at it and terror gripped my heart. Omigod! She's thrown up in her water. Or, no, worse, she's forgotten herself and used it for a litterbox. Omigod! The biggest ugliest hairball in the world! What'll I do?

Then I knelt on the floor by the bowl, only to learn that, actually, it was a wadded-up knee high stocking that she'd been playing with.

Needless to say, Myopic Mommy has learned NOT to kick off knee-highs and leave them on the bedroom floor now. LOL

Originally Posted by Vibiana

Oh, goody! Let's play Drown The Mouse! LOL (almost sounds sort of risque, doesn't it ... the kind of game they play at parties after all the strait-laced people go home)

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Either I never get invited to these kinds of parties, or I'm one of those strait-laced people the others are waiting to leave ...

Originally Posted by Mirinae

I think, too, that it has something to do with "saving" the toy for later. Your cat perceives the water dish as a safe place (a cache, I guess) where she can leave her toys and nobody else will come and steal it from her. My cats prefer knocking the water dish over and splashing in the puddles on the floor ... Who says cats don't like water?

Click to expand...

But...............she didn't "leave" it there. She played with it out of the bowl and got the floor and carpet wet but we forgave her .

Dan

it's harmless behavior... my friends' cat Silas, used to knock things off the dining table and drown them in his water bowl... he did this to something of mine... can't remember now what it was... I know it was fabric covered, though.

It really is harmless... unles they actually drown a real live mouse... that's nasty.

From what I have gathered it's pretty much a game to them... fortunately, neither of mine have started that game yet.

Amanda

This explained a lot for me too...Luna will plop her food into the water bowl. I always figured she liked mushy food or flavored water. But to find out she's drowning the food makes more sense.
It's just a little annoying though as there's always one food bowl that's totally filled with about 5 pieces of dry food floating at the top.

Yes, one of my two cats also drops many of his toys into his water bowl.

This is the same cat that also likes to paw/knock water out of his bowl (see my other thread) - so that depth perception idea mentioned earlier seems to have some credibility for those of us looking for scientific answers to what is most likely just a "cat game".

My Sam has a habit of picking up some dry food, walking over to eat it over the water bowl, but she doesn't eat any of the pieces that fall in, so she's not doing it to wet the food?? Go figure!

One of my cats constantly dumps his toys in his water fountain. mice, balls, q-tips, anything he can find.