Meow. It’s Play Time!
By: Oliver Thomas Spedding
Tags: Animals, Cats, Pets, Love, Play

Playful behavior by cats continues to fascinate all those who observe it.

By

Oliver T. Spedding

Human beings appear to enjoy watching us cats play and apparently they have done so for hundreds of years.

They also find much pleasure in playing with us.

In the days of the Roman Empire many great Romans were fascinated with the way we cats played.

Later many well known humans wrote expressively about our playful behaviour, although some were concerned that they might be considered to be frivolous.

One great naturalist in the seventeenth century, Edward Topsel, had this to say about our playful behaviour: “Therefore, how she beggeth, playeth, looketh,catcheth, tosseth with her foot, riseth up to strings to strings held over her head, sometimes creeping, sometimes lying on the back, playing with one foot, sometimes on the belly, snatching now with mouth and anon with foot…” but then he checks himself by saying: “Verily it may well be called an idle man’s pastime.”

Finally though, he continues to criticize cat lovers by saying: “Because they which love any beast in a high measure, have so much less charity unto man.”

At about the same time a well known French writer, Michel de Montaigne, honestly declared: “When I play with my cat, who knows whether she diverts herself with me, or I with her. We entertain one another with mutual follies…and if I have my time to begin to refuse, she also has hers.”

These remarks were made at a time when us cats were considered to be evil and dangerous and were widely persecuted and it goes to show that even then, cat’s playfulness presented an irresistible appeal.

Topsel qualified his observations of our behaviour by warning that playing with cats could “destroy the lungs and corrupt the air and a certain company of Monks much given to nourish and play with cats, whereby they were so infected, that within a short space, none of them were able to say, read, pray, or sing, in all the Monastery.”

Notwithstanding these ridiculous fears and superstitions, we cat’s playful behaviour continues to fascinate all those that observe it.

Some human beings were at one time concerned that our play was based on violence by claiming that even the smallest kittens were acting out attacks on their siblings as if they were prey animals.

They also claimed that although cats were “vivacious, frolicsome and afforded excellent amusement to children, their always light and agreeable toying is never altogether innocent and can easily be converted into habitual malice.”

These humans never took cognizance of the fact that the killing of prey by us cats is exactly what we were domesticated to do.

MORAL ISSUES

In recent years these moral issues that have troubled the humans who liked to enjoy the company of animals but believed that they should be judged by a set of human values, have been reduced in importance.

The Darwinian evolutionary philosophy now enables humans to accept each species in its own right and see its behavior from its own point of view and not interpret our actions in terms of good and evil.

When a mouse is killed by one of us cats, humans no longer accuse us of evilness, even if they sympathize with the mouse.

And they no longer praise us cats for fulfilling our duty by ridding them of the mouse that is now a pest.

What we now see is a change of attitude that sees the actions of us cats as part of our natural specialty as a predatory carnivore.

We cats are now seen for what we are; cats.

With this new foresight, humans can now sit back and appreciate the amusing escapades of our young at play and monitor their endless variations in the four patterns of play that they have identified.

PLAY FIGHTING

This is the earliest form of playing by us cats and begins when we are about three weeks old.

It involves rough-and-tumble actions with our siblings with us jumping on each other, grappling and rolling each other onto our backs.

During these actions no one gets hurt because we lack the strength to injure.

Too-powerful play always ends up in our play being terminated.

The result is that we quickly perfect the knack of inhibited assault.

PREY HUNTING

The Mouse-pounce

In this type of play we learn to hide, crouch, creep forward and then rush forward and leap on an imaginary rodent which can often be the twitching tip of our mother’s tail or a small object lying on the ground.

The Bird-swat

This form of play includes the same movements as the Mouse-pounce but ends with an upward jump and a sharp blow with our front paw as if striking a bird in flight.

The things that generate this action are mostly moving objects that hang above us or light-weight objects thrown to us by our owners.

The Fish-scoop

This play action occurs when we discover a small object lying motionless on the ground.

We suddenly fling out a paw and scoop the object backwards over our shoulder, much like we would scoop a fish out of a river.

We then turn quickly and pounce on the pseudo fish proudly before it can wriggle back into the imaginary water.

It is during these play sessions that we learn to use our imaginations and any small object that can be easily moved can serve as a victim.

Our interest is usually limited though as these objects are often too hard or too heavy.

The ideal ”victim” should be very lightweight so that even a small effort will move it a considerable distance.

It should also be soft so that we can sink our teeth or claws into it with ease.

Examples of these “victims’ are sheets of paper rolled into tight balls and small balls of wool.

All of us cats demonstrate these four basic forms of play but in addition many of us develop our own unique games, some of which are rewarded if they include a social interaction with our owners.

An unusual form of play developed by one of us and its owner involved the owner placing sheets of newspaper on the smooth kitchen floor.

The cat would then back up and launch itself at a sheet of paper.

As soon as the cat landed on a sheet of paper, it would brake hard, resulting in a long skid across the kitchen floor and bash up against the opposite kitchen wall with the cat still standing on its “magic carpet”.

The cat would then return to its starting place and wait for another sheet of paper to be placed on the floor.

Descriptions of our personalities abound whenever and wherever our owners congregate.

When it comes to playtime each of us has our own personal, distinctive way of embellishing our playful interaction with our owners and usually our owners are equally enthusiastic and responsive.

DASHES

One activity that we cats exhibit is making headlong dashes around the house or apartment, moving at top speed and then suddenly coming to rest as if nothing unusual had happened.

Many of our owners become quite concerned, believing that we have been overcome by some kind of seizure.

There is nothing to be concerned about though.

These ‘mad dashes’ are common amongst us cats and there is a simple explanation.

Our ‘mad dashes’ are called ‘vacuum’ activity and are the result of us being kept in a confined area and pampered continuously.

This results in a lack of opportunity to express our inborn instincts to hunt, chase and flee from danger as we have no prey to catch and no predators or rivals to escape from.

Our unsatisfied urge to dash towards an unwary mouse or bird or flee from approaching danger drives us to a point where even the smallest motivation can cause a huge reaction and our pent-up energy spills over into a crazy scurry.

When we are working outside chasing rats, mice and birds or challenging rival cats, we are completely relaxed when we finally return to our owners.

Our pampered brothers and sisters, by contrast, can only prowl around the house or apartment like a caged lion or tiger and even if they get the opportunity to go outside there is nothing to hunt in the sterile gardens and no threat from other cats.

All they have is a pre-killed dish of food when they return.

No wonder they are lethargic and frustrated.

The ‘mad dash’ is their only way to release the hunting and fleeing drive and feel more relaxed again.

So, the next time you see one of us go off on a ‘mad dash’ you need to understand that your cat is frustrated and needs to be given the opportunity to exercise its natural instincts to hunt or flee.

Playing some of the games mentioned above can be a great help.

Photographs

Photo 1 — Photo by liang wang on Unsplash

Photo 2 — Photo by Sarah Dorweiler on Unsplash

Photo 3 — Photo by Partha Narasimhan on Unsplash