Cats and Hunting

There’s nothing you can do about it, just accept it that your cat will hunt. You may have the most loved and well fed cat ever, but it will still hunt. Its all down to instinct. Cats are hunters, its how they always got their food before we came along and domesticated them. This applies even when you feed your cat on the best of everything.

I have heard some people say that if you take a kitten away from its mother before she has shown it how to hunt then it will be a poor hunter and will not bother. Not true, Tigger was taken away from his mother at 5 weeks and had never been outside until then yet he was a proficient hunter. He was always well fed and well cared for but he still hunted. I didn’t like it and on a few occasions I managed to rescue birds and mice he had caught but I imagine they would have been so badly injured they would have died. I tried my best but failed, Tigger always liked to hunt.

Some people also tell me that pet cats are too lazy to hunt. I suppose if you have a pet cat which you feed too much so it becomes grossly overweight this may be true but this isn’t fair to your cat. Put is on a diet. Otherwise cats will hunt even though sometimes they seem to spend most of the time asleep. They are shallow sleepers and can become awake very quickly ready to hunt if they sense prey whilst asleep.

A friend of mine once had her cat declawed so that it wouldn’t hunt. Not true, I told her, you’ve had it declawed to save your furniture. It was true and her cat still hunted although not as proficiently as Tigger. Their cat still used its paws to catch prey and then killed it by biting its neck the way Tigger does. I don’t hold with declawing, it isn’t necessary and is only for you not your cat, so be a kind human and don’t do it.

As regards to hunting, just accept that it is part of nature and has always happened and always will happen. Cats are hunters, like hunting and will hunt and there’s not much you can do about it.