To this day, cats are easily one of the most popular pets around the globe. Despite the popularity and domestication of cats, they can have some pretty undesirable characteristics.
Even some of the most avid cat lovers find some of their most unique characteristics, such as bringing you a dead animal, off-putting. In this article, we are going to look at three reasons why cats bring you dead animals. Let us get started. Although cats have been domesticated for so many years, they still have a powerful instinct to hunt. Even household cats that have been fed by humans their entire lives will have the urge to hunt, both for food and for pleasure.
Whenever wild or domesticated cats catch their prey, they are likely to bring it back to their pack for various reasons. The idea of taking the prey back to the pack makes a lot of sense given how cats approach hunting, consuming their prey, and their interactions with other cats. For starters, many wild cats are pack animals.
As a result, they have an urge to share their kill with other cats so they can all share in on the feast. Beyond that, cats also use their prey as a teaching method for the young kittens.
Females are mostly likely to bring prey back to kittens, even kittens that are not their own, to teach them how to hunt for survival. Even though cats naturally have an urge to hunt for survival, cats also enjoy the hunt. That is why many domesticated cats will still hunt, even if they are not hungry. In fact, many cats will hunt and kill inedible animals purely for enjoyment.
With this prey catching behavior in mind, here are the three main reasons why your cat brings you dead animals:. You know when you go to a restaurant and take the leftover food home for later? Cats do the same thing with their prey.
They may catch prey when they are not hungry, but they do not necessarily want to waste the food. So, they will bring their prey to the doorstep or inside the house so they can save it for later.
In this case, the cat is not so much bringing you the dead animal. Instead, the cat is saving it for themselves. It will be rather obvious that this is why they bring their prey inside when they do not show it to you or bring it to you directly. As we mentioned above, cats are pack animals. This causes them to share food with their family. In the wild, cat mothers teach their young how to eat their food by bringing home dead or injured prey.
Domestic cats are no different. But in this modern age of spayed domestic cats, many female felines have no young to whom they need to pass on their hunting wisdom. By leaving a dead animal on the back porch, your cat is acting out its natural role as mother and teacher. You, her loving owner, represent her surrogate family. And frankly, she knows you would never have been able to catch that delicious mouse on your own. So before you chastise your cat for her deadly habits, consider what her behavior really means.
Your cat comes home, carrying a dead animal in its mouth. As kittens, cats are taught to hunt and kill by their mothers. This feeds into their natural instinct to hunt. Even well-fed, well-cared for domestic cats may still have a desire to hunt and kill small animals. This can be upsetting, especially if your beloved pet cat is leaving mouse entrails on the doorsteps.
A mother will teach her kittens how to hunt by bringing back dead animals for them to eat. This also teaches them what they need to do if they want to eat. Then, when her kittens get older, the mother cat will take them out with her to learn how to hunt. Of course, this is behavior based on the premise that a cat will need to feed itself.
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