Trying to bury food?

I just noticed my cat doing something strange - she has started pawing around her food dishes after eating as if she is burying it - like digging in her litterbox. I leave her dry food out all day with water, and leave her wet food out for awhile since she tends to eat a little, go back and eat more, etc. I don't leave it out long enough to spoil.

I have never seen a cat do that - it is a problem with the smell or food?

perfectly normal behavior.

It's actually a holdover of the wild trait of burying food for later....

Ok, cool. It was a little strange to watch but I am glad it is nothing unusual. I guess she still has lots of feral in her.

Well, there's two theories on it, the first and most likely one being that the food is being saved for later, as hell603 said. That is probably what it is.

The second one being that the cat hates the food and is burying it to "throw it away". It can be both, does she eat about half and bury it and come back and eat the rest, or does she hardly eat it and then bury it and eat it again only because that's all the wet she gets? Maybe you could try a different flavor and see if she does it.

I've always heard burying leftover food was actually an instinct to prevent a predator from smelling it and finding her.

She has just started doing it since I bought her some new flavors to try - I never saw her do it with the seafood flavors, but the new beef and chicken. She eats a little, does other stuff for awhile, walks by her dishes, sniffs the wet food sometimes eats a little more and paws the ground like she wants to bury it. Maybe she doesn't like the new flavors...hmmm.

As along as it isn't a problem and she is still eating I am OK about it, but it does look weird when she does it. I will feed her some seafood flavor tomorrow and see what happens.

Tolstoy is the only one of ours that does it - but he regularly "buries" his food and yummy treats.

I don't know if this is the same, but Phoenix will paw his dry food out of his bowl (regular plastic divided) and eats it off the floor! It is so funny!