You may have witnessed your cat scratching around the food bowl and pawing the floor in a very deliberate manner, and wondered what in the world your kitty was thinking.
It may just be that your cat is not thinking, but doing something that is instinctual.
There is an activity in Nature that is referred to as caching, pronounced “cashing”.
Caching is the putting aside of food for later. It is done by various species of animals, birds, and insects. The method of caching varies widely in Nature.
The method by which some cat species in the wild cache their food bears a strong resemblance to the activity of Domestic Cats when they scratch the floor around their food bowls.
I have seen a video of a Mountain Lion caching their partially eaten prey by using a paw to scratch leaves and branches over the carcass. I have also seen a video of a Bobcat doing the very same thing.
Both these videos, which were posted online by the Felidae Conservation Fund, depict those wilderness cats engaged in scratching behavior that looked just like what I have observed our Domestic Cats doing when they scratched around their food or water bowl.
I do believe our Domestic Cats are acting out this instinctive activity known as caching
To further bolster my hypothesis, let me add that the Illinois Natural History Survey recorded several instances of European Wildcats caching their leftover meal by scratching forest debris over the food to cover it. European Wildcats are close relatives of our Domestic Cats.
Are Our Cats Instinctively Caching?
Squirrels can consume nuts after several months of long-term caching.
Carnivores such as cats will tend to short-term cache food. That they do this for short periods of time is probably a good thing, since meat is the primary food of carnivores and is subject to spoilage.
Perhaps this is why I have had our kitties turn down food that has been “cached” in the refrigerator. Maybe they thought it to be too old, or too long-term. I’m just speculating here.
Do you imagine that when your cat scratches around their food bowl, they may be acting out an inborn impulse inherited from their wild cousins to cache food?
Perhaps you have observed your cat doing things other than caching that also appear to be very much like what various cat species do in the wild. Even though your kitty, having all the comforts of home, does not need to do those things, instinct prevails and initiates that activity.
Instinct is a powerful force in your kitty’s life, and my blog post What Are Cat Natural Instincts? elaborates on this and how it influences so much of what your cat does.
We know cats often engage in activities because instinct makes them do it. Climbing is another one, so you may want to have a look at my blog post How to Choose a Cat Tree so that your cat will have something to climb on rather than the furniture.
So if we think that maybe your kitty scratching around the food bowl is a manifestation of an instinctive impulse to cache their food, we may then ask the question: “why do wilderness cats cache their food?”
5 Reasons Wilderness Cats Might Cache Their Food (as suggested by an article in the Journal of Animal Ecology)
1. Kleptoparasitism is the stealing of an animal’s food by another animal or multiple animals. The caching cat may simply be trying to hide that food to keep others from eating it.
2. Fear of limits on resources may compel a cat to try to save as much food as possible. Somewhat like you putting food away in a pantry as insurance against the grocery store running out of stuff you need.
3. Saving for later food that cannot be consumed in one sitting. This might be analogous to those times you got a “take-home box” for the leftovers of a restaurant meal that was more than you could eat.
4. To slow the spoilage of the food by attempting to protect it from direct sunlight and weather. Since cats are carnivores, that food they are caching is meat that will spoil over time. Cats are predators more so than scavengers, so their preference would be relatively fresh rather than old spoiled meat.
5. To keep their own presence a secret from potential predators and/or potential prey. The fact that the cat is caching food could possibly be an indicator the animal may not be the apex predator in that forest, so not drawing the attention of bigger animals is a good thing.
Is My Cat Trying to Bury the Food by Scratching?
Those researchers cited earlier in the post who observed those wilderness cats caching their prey only refer to covering activity, not digging and burying activity. The cats are just pawing leaves, twigs, and such over their cache, not digging out a hole and burying their cache.
Researchers with the Mountain Lion Foundation , who studied caching by that species, state in an article that they observed no digging or burying, and even went on to relate that the Mountain Lions seemed to try to avoid getting any dirt on the cached food.
Therefore, if you think your cat is pretend caching when scratching around the food bowl, then you might conclude your kitty is trying to cover the food, not bury it in the ground.
Want to Learn More About Cats?
Drop in to see my blog post Learn About Cats