DEAR JOAN: Our male, neutered cat carries a small stuffed animal around the house and makes funny whining noises until we follow him.
He also kneads a rug after he drops the item, sometimes in a trance. Any idea what’s going on?
Robert Flaharty, Clayton
DEAR ROBERT: You gotta love those cats and their strange behaviors, although this one isn’t all that strange. For a cat, that is.
There are a few explanations for the behavior you’re seeing. One, he may be signaling that he wants to play fetch. When he drops the stuffed toy, he expects you to pick it up and toss it for him.
Two, he could be displaying behavior more commonly associated with female cats, but not unheard of in males. He could be treating the toy as a kitten, moving it from place to place as cats often do with their very young offspring.
Three, he might be trying to teach you how to hunt. Again, this is a behavior more common in female cats, but some males share in teaching their kittens how to hunt prey and survive in the world. When they catch something, they bring it — still alive — to their kittens and show them how to stalk and dispatch the animal. In this case, the cat is trying to teach the humans, who he sees as being woefully lacking in hunting skills.
And four, our pets can become very attached to certain toys, even to the point of treating them as if they were offspring. While that sounds pretty sad, it’s not really. When your cat vocalizes while carrying his toy, he’s showing you how proud he is of his “baby.”
There is a fifth reason — the cat is under great stress — but this doesn’t sound like the case for you.
As for the kneading of the rug, this behavior indicates contentment. Your cat is happy. The kneading itself goes back to kittenhood, when kittens kneaded their mother as they nursed. Kneading is a reminder of how content they felt then.
DEAR JOAN: There is a stray puppy who wanders from house to house for handouts. It looks like a Labrador.
It eats the blacktop driveway rocks on the road and prefers that to dog food. What could she be getting from eating blacktop rocks that she doesn’t get from high quality dog food where meat is the primary ingredient? Everyone is curious.
Heather Hill, Warner Robins, Georgia
DEAR HEATHER: It’s dangerous for the puppy to be eating asphalt, which is toxic, and rocks, which can lead to all sorts of medical issues including blocked intestines. I suspect she is under stress from being homeless and undernourished and now has an eating disorder know as “pica,” which is a compulsion to eat things not normally considered food.
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