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

[fhicat]

Mine's almost certainly a leftie. The only time he uses his right is if he's lying on his left side. If he's sitting or lying on his tummy, then the left paw comes out first.

 

[Margret]

Okay! It is now 9 Lefties, 4 Righties, 2 Ambidextrous, 1 Quadridextrous, and 1 Unclassifiable.

Regarding your Confucius quote, that's how I know that, for a cat, Jasmine is a genius; she actually understands pointing fingers, at least most of the time. (I don't know about pointing at the moon; I don't think cats are sufficiently far-sighted to properly see the moon.)

Margret

 

[meowzart]

Braveheart doesn't seem to have one. At times, he uses all 4 to pin a toy ( or hubby's hand) down! ) He doesn't do this with me though. I don't know what to make of it.

 

[duck2swan]

My girl is definitely a leftie. Under the door, she always goes with the left. (And she's good!) To bat and swat, left paw. When she uses the right paw it's usually in compliment to the left, such as when she is in hunt/conquer/play with the spoils mode! When we are snuggling or playing closely with her, and to touch us she uses the right. That's her gentle paw.

 

[losna]

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

I only just noticed this comment, but I often ponder Sinbad's and Tempest's color preferences. They both have a decided preference for hot pink, unless it's small furry mice toys - in which case white will win out over pink. We gave each of them 5 furred mice toys (white, grey, light brown, dark brown and hot pink), and they have both played with the white ones so much that the ears, tails and noses have all been ripped off. The pink ones are worn down (although not as badly), and all of the others are completely ignored.

But aside from those mice, if a selection of toys in different colors is put in front of either of them, they'll go for the bright pinks and reds first, with bright green following (it has to be bright though - no response to olive green, but bright peacock green will cause instant activation of pounce mode). 

 

[Draco]

Monet prefers to smack and grab me with his left paw. Not sure about Cassie