Many cats will scratch paw or knead the ground around their food bowl before or after eating.
Why does my cat scratch the floor by her food bowl.
Only feed him enough for one meal at a time.
If the bowl is gone he won t have anything he needs to cover up.
It s not unusual for cats to hide their food but if it becomes an obsession for him or if he s taken to dragging your delicate sofa doilies to his food bowl cat behavior associates has a few tips.
What is floor pawing in cats.
When she was a kitten i had to keep the water and food bowls separated because if the.
Gracie has always scratched and clawed on and around the bowl before she drinks.
Sometimes i would go through 3 or 4 cans of cat food being scratched at before the cat would eat someth.
Scratching around the food bowl is a common behaviour in cats which is completely normal.
The pawing and digging is an example of instinctive behavior meaning your cat probably didn t learn it from its mother.
Another theory is that as cats in the wild tend to eat where they sleep they don t want a rotting carcass lying around.
If i saw him actually eating food he s tossing on the floor i d feel better about scooping it up 3x a day and putting it back in the bowl so his sister can eat but he s just tossing it and then has nothing left in the bowl to eat and meows at me to put the food in the bowl.
She makes a mess.
She scratched at the first one and ate the second so i now interprete the scratching as her saying this smells like my poo since she will eat other foods she deemed worthy.
Wild cats as well as feral cats have all been observed burying any uneaten food to avoid attracting predators or scavengers.
It took me years to understand why my cat gracie does that.
As was mentioned below they usually scratch around their food bowl either after eating or before if they don t like what you are feeding them.
Your cat is scratching around her water bowl because she is trying to gauge the difference from the surface to the ground.
This is made difficult if the bowl is glass or has reflective material such as shiny metal.
The most effective way to stop the behavior is to take his food bowl away from him when he s done eating.
Therefore avoid this to help her out.
If you free feed leaving a food bowl full of kibble out all the time this will only encourage the behavior.
So now you know why your cat may scratch around her water bowl.
If there was a paper towel or other easy to move object near the food dish she would probably cover her food with it moving it by scratching and pulling at it with her claws.
Ditty s motivation for scratching the floor and wall around her food after she eats differs from why she s scratching the wall after using her litterbox.
I experimented with 2 snacks one she liked and one she didn t.
Why do cats dig and scratch around their food bowl.