Cat tokens

Not sure really what to title this thread.

My youngest cat is 7 years old. I got her when she was 4 months old and shortly after I got her she adopted a pair of rolled up socks that she snagged from my clean laundry pile.

She doesn't want to play with them, so if I throw them she just sits and looks at me, and I'm the one fetching them.

What she does is carts them from one room to another while meowing, and then drops them at my feet. She doesn't cuddle them or sleep with them or anything else. It's almost like she uses them as a tool to announce herself.

If I am in the living room and the socks are not in the room, she will leap down and interupt a nice "drooling snuggle session", go off to the bedroom and find the socks and then start meowing as she's carrying them around. I have to call her because she seems to roam around like she's lost or something and sounds desperate to find me and bring me the socks. The same thing at night when I'm in bed. She will be cuddling with me and then suddenly leap down, go into the living room, find the socks and start meowing desperately. I have to call her because she seems "lost" and can't find her way back to me. She then drops the socks on the floor, leaps back up and resumes snuggling.

Does anyone know what this is about? It's cute and all, but really strange.

Hi, lots of (mostly female) cats have something like the socks - mine has a fur mouse - and when they do carry it in to you, their regular meow can change to a kind of weird one (and they'll 'talk' to the thing too). I have lots of theories (she's presenting her 'kill', the mouse is a 'baby', it's just a token payment for anticipated food, etc. etc.), but in the end, it's doesn't matter (I guess), as long as she's happy with it. I just make sure to put it back in her original chosen spot for it so she always knows where it is. But, yeah, they can get kind of involved with it!

Molly does the same thing, though she only uses designated cat toys, but she doesn't always use the same one. She does shred them a bit first, and then miowls (meow+howl, pron. me-owls) until her kill is acknowledged. BF tends to feed her when she presents to him, so I think once or twice she's used it to let him know she's hungry (there wasn't any 'shredding' - she just picked it up and miowled.

Normally she's a very quiet kitty with a silent miow (she just opens her mouth, no sound comes out), so this scared us witless the first few times she did it.

My female cat of 2 years also does this with a fuzzy octopus like toy. She'll pick it up and bring it to you once in a while all the while, "meowling". She doesn't do it all the time and most of the time doesn't care about the toy at all. She usually only does it at bed time and you can hear her carry it all the way to the bedroom where she jumps up, drops it on the bed and goes to sleep. She's never done it with another toy but recently we got her a new octopus and she did the exact same thing with the new one.

Originally Posted by PhantomSr

My female cat of 2 years also does this with a fuzzy octopus like toy. She'll pick it up and bring it to you once in a while all the while, "meowling". She doesn't do it all the time and most of the time doesn't care about the toy at all. She usually only does it at bed time and you can hear her carry it all the way to the bedroom where she jumps up, drops it on the bed and goes to sleep. She's never done it with another toy but recently we got her a new octopus and she did the exact same thing with the new one.

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That's too funny - maybe it's all the legs?

Molly has been know to bring her 'kill' to bed with her, but I think only while we're at work, so it's hard to know what she was up to before that.

Sounds like your little baby is proud of her kill, and strutting it around for all to see! How cute!!

My kitties like to do this with my hair scrunchies. Hobbes likes to do it with a doll of my daughters. They both also like to do this with a pen of my daughter's that's wrapped in felt, and has a little polar bear head on the end (Christmas pen...it's better looking than it sounds, hehe).

It's funny the things they find that are "worthy" to be announced!

Our little hunters!

Our eldest cat, Much, will grab any clothing she can get a hold of (teaches me to always put away the laundry ). This morning it was a pair of sweat pants that she dragged down the stairs, meowing the whole way. Sometimes she will knead it and suckle it. Others, she seems happy that we see it and acknowledge it. Whether it is a "kill" or something else, she just seems pleased to bring it to us.

I have an angora headband (like, for winter to keep your head warm) that Zissou has decided is actually a small animal that she killed and must carry around. It was in my closet and she found it and now it is hers. It's funny to see her carry it, as it's longer than her legs so she has to straddle it and trips over it.

She does the same thing with a mouse she has that has one of those catnip pouches in it, it's covered in slobber and all sticky like a dog toy. Kinda gross really.

Often I'll wake up to find all the "kills" she's broughten me in the night, twist ties, toys, socks, the headband, bottlecaps, mice. She doesn't meow, but when she first found the angora headband she dragged it out to the living room and probably fought it for a while, and then came and woke me up (pawing at me, pushing me, meowing, jumping up and down) and made me come out to see it. It was 5 am and I didn't have my contacts in so I was like "What do you want!" and went back to bed, only to figure it out the next morning.

I've heard two theories about it besides the replacement baby one: that they are proud of their kill and are showing off their contribution to the household, or that they have noticed how terrible we are at hunting and killing and are trying to teach us / feed us / rub it in our face.

Originally Posted by Zissou'sMom

I've heard two theories about it besides the replacement baby one: that they are proud of their kill and are showing off their contribution to the household, or that they have noticed how terrible we are at hunting and killing and are trying to teach us / feed us / rub it in our face.

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That story is priceless! Personally, I'm pretty certain that it is a replacement baby for some and a kill for others - like, Molly's been a mother - probably many time - and a good one for her observed litters. I'm confident that the 'shredding' is a sign that it's a kill not a baby - but I've heard plenty of stories that sound more baby than kill.

As far as the teaching us to hunt thing, I have a story (kinda gross). Molly and I have this co-mothering thing going on - like sometimes she seems to think I'm her mom, and sometimes she seems to think I'm her kitten. Anyway, on three seperate occassions (once to me, once to bf, once together), she has snuck a dead bird into the house to try to teach us to hunt. You can tell that she's not just playing with it for fun, because if you ignore her (the first time, I tried to leave her in the dining room because the floor is easy to clean) she will follow you, put it down, wait til you are watching her, and then begin the hunt sequence in this exagerated fashion. If you stop paying attention, she picks it up, follows you and begins again. Eventually I just picked it, and her up and put them both outside - hilariously, she seemed convinced that I learned to hunt at this point and left me alone after that.

The other two times was for bf's benefit - even the time I was there, the focus was on his lesson. I don't know if he's ever 'passed'.

Oh, that is so funny Satai!! I've never had a kitty try to teach me (or any other human) to hunt! What a wonderful little mommy!!

Originally Posted by maherwoman

Oh, that is so funny Satai!! I've never had a kitty try to teach me (or any other human) to hunt! What a wonderful little mommy!!

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Oh, we see the funny side!

You're right - she is an excellent mommy to me when she's in mommy-mode - a couple of weeks ago she pinned my hand like it was a filthy kitten and gave it a very through wash!

Originally Posted by Satai

Oh, we see the funny side!

You're right - she is an excellent mommy to me when she's in mommy-mode - a couple of weeks ago she pinned my hand like it was a filthy kitten and gave it a very through wash!

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LOL!! That's so cute!!

Hobbes found a new toy today...

The story: I took a couple pairs of my daughter's jeans and made cut-off shorts for her. She took the left-over scraps, and made outfits for her stuffed animals (so cute!!!), and Hobbes found a piece of seam, and has now taken to throwing it around, and meowing a bit. It's so funny. He batted it, and it slid under the closed bathroom door, and man did that boy start MOANING!! It was hilarious!! It's rare for him to be so crazy for a toy, and this one was pretty much free! LOL!!

Aren't kitties funny?