Cat "burying" behavior

cmshap

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My cat Willy has always done this "burying" behavior in two contexts:

After using the litter box. As I understand, this is very common. After using the litter box, he always spends some time scratching the sides of the box, as if he is digging and burying his waste.

The other is near his food dish, which is more mysterious.

I am currently feeding him about 3/4 wet food, and 1/4 dry food. Whenever I feed him a wet meal he takes periodic breaks to dig around the area, which I interpret as trying to bury something smelly. But I keep his eating area mostly clean, and even after being freshly cleaned, he does this.

See the attached photo. This is from before I started him on wet food, but his eating area is the same. He only started this behavior after I transitioned him to wet food. He will eat a few bites, then "dig" on the floor and the wall around his eating area.

And yes, in this particular photo, the area is dirty, but I clean it after every meal today. Just wondering why he feels so compelled to "bury" everything. He will spend up to 2-3 minutes scratching on that red wall behind him after a freshly served wet meal, after the rubber mat and surrounding floor has been freshly cleaned.

This isn't anything that worries me, because he does eat the food. But I just wonder why he does it all the time.
 

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Mamanyt1953

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It's just a well-developed survival instinct. This is why cats bury their "business," to hide the smell from larger predators. They also, in the wild, bury uneaten bits of food, for the same reason. The canned food has a more natural meat smell than the dry food, and is triggering the "hide" instinct. It's certainly nothing to worry overly much about.
 
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cmshap

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It's just a well-developed survival instinct. This is why cats bury their "business," to hide the smell from larger predators. They also, in the wild, bury uneaten bits of food, for the same reason. The canned food has a more natural meat smell than the dry food, and is triggering the "hide" instinct. It's certainly nothing to worry overly much about.
That's kind of what I expected. I'm not worried about it at all, but he spends a lot of time "burying" his food and sometimes it feels excessive. I'm not worried about it, but it seems he feels compelled to bury food, I just wonder if he feels a little stressed about saving it.
 
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cmshap

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Some cats “bury” their food because they don’t like it but mostly because they are instinctively saving it. My girl Lola uses her toys to cover her partially eaten food so she can save it for later.
My cat definitely likes his food. He eats fast, which is part of why I don't totally understand his periodic instinct to save it while he is eating. Like he will stop eating, then "bury" it, and then immediately resume eating.

But I do understand it is purely instinctual. I can't apply too much higher-level reasoning to his behavior, as much as I may want to.
 

tabbytom

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My cat definitely likes his food. He eats fast, which is part of why I don't totally understand his periodic instinct to save it while he is eating. Like he will stop eating, then "bury" it, and then immediately resume eating.
This is normal. My boy does this sometimes too. He can be waiting for his food to be served and when it's scooped out on his plate, he sniff it and then do the covering action and start to walk away and after the first step, he pause and take a step back and starts eating.

I think when they do this action like what your cat and my boy is doing, I guess that they are actually hungry and therefore continue to eat. If my boy is not hungry, he'll sniff and cover the food and walk away and I can chase him around the house to get him to eat, he'll just keep running away from me :lol:
 
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cmshap

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This is normal. My boy does this sometimes too. He can be waiting for his food to be served and when it's scooped out on his plate, he sniff it and then do the covering action and start to walk away and after the first step, he pause and take a step back and starts eating.
Haha, cats are so weird.

At the same time, I find it fascinating that these instinctual behaviors survived hundreds of generations of domestication.
 

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Phoebe’s an enthusiastic burier. She hurls litter all over the place when she’s covering her poos, then walks out and covers it with a bit of tile, some carpet, and so on. She also likes covering food - not so much her own as Daisy’s after she’s tried pinching it. One of these days she’ll manage to pull the whole mat over it. I suspect it smells stronger (Purina Pro Plan Weight Loss tuna kibble vs Royal Canin Anallergenic kibble - certainly Daisy’s poos smell more than hers).
 
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cmshap

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It sounds like this is pretty normal.

It's on the bottom rung of my "worry ladder" in terms of concerns about my cat, but I posted this question because I want him to live the happiest and most comfortable life as he ages past 10. I was kind of wondering about if this burying behavior indicates stress of some kind.
 

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It sounds like this is pretty normal.

It's on the bottom rung of my "worry ladder" in terms of concerns about my cat, but I posted this question because I want him to live the happiest and most comfortable life as he ages past 10. I was kind of wondering about if this burying behavior indicates stress of some kind.
Let a cat be a cat and they'll always be happy.
 
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cmshap

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There is a third context in which he does the burying, and it's actually helpful to me sometimes.

After he vomits, or produces a hairball, he digs on the floor around it for a long time.

It actually alerts me to where he's vomited if I didn't see it happen. (I know this is normal, too.)
 
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cmshap

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If only some instinctive nature are found in hoomans...........................................oh well.................................. :lol:
I think we have the opposite problem. Too many of us have "instinctual" (i.e., dumb) reactions to things without thinking.

We have a much larger neocortex relative to brain volume than cats, but sometimes, I wonder why we don't use it.
 
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cmshap

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Update: he is continuing to do this burying behavior around his food dish more and more. Lately, he is doing it between every few bites, and it seems excessive.

I am thoroughly cleaning his food dish and mat between feedings, and have cleaned the entire area that is his feeding corner. But he is still "burying" all of his wet food.

It's not a big deal because he is eating normally, nonetheless, and is healthy. It just seems odd that he is doing it so much... He constantly scratches the wall and floor all around his food dish.
 

tabbytom

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Update: he is continuing to do this burying behavior around his food dish more and more. Lately, he is doing it between every few bites, and it seems excessive.

I am thoroughly cleaning his food dish and mat between feedings, and have cleaned the entire area that is his feeding corner. But he is still "burying" all of his wet food.

It's not a big deal because he is eating normally, nonetheless, and is healthy. It just seems odd that he is doing it so much... He constantly scratches the wall and floor all around his food dish.
If he's eating normally, let him do the cat thing. This is normal.
 
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If he's eating normally, let him do the cat thing. This is normal.
Yeah, I am not stopping him from doing any instinctual cat things.

I've lived with him for almost a full decade, so when his behavior changes I am very sensitive to it. But it recently occurred to me that all of us have behavior changes as we age. My grandparents certainly did when they got into their elderly years. And so do I as I enter my 40s.
 

tabbytom

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Yeah, I am not stopping him from doing any instinctual cat things.

I've lived with him for almost a full decade, so when his behavior changes I am very sensitive to it. But it recently occurred to me that all of us have behavior changes as we age. My grandparents certainly did when they got into their elderly years. And so do I as I enter my 40s.
Yea, there'll be changes in life be it cats or hoomans but as long the change is not for the worse then we start to worry.
 
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cmshap

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Hoping for some suggestions here...

He has been doing this burying thing so excessively lately, he is knocking over his food dish. He flipped it over more than once.

I've changed it to a regular human plate, so it's not the same as the one pictured. But he's flipped over both dishes.

When he is "burying" he tends to lift up the edges of the rubber tray under his food dish, and that's what knocks the dish over. But that rubber tray catches spilled food, and he spills a lot of food since I switched him to wet food (he licks it off the edges of the plate).

He digs on the floor and on the wall, and he can hook his foot under a corner of that rubber tray in the process, and then lifts up the corner, which flips the dish.

I am looking into ways to stick the rubber tray to the floor, in a way that's not permanent but keeps it stuck down. I haven't found a solution yet, however.
 

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He could also be marking his territory. Cats have pheromone glands in their feet.

He could be saying, "Wow I really like this. It's all mine." From how you're describing it I would think that's it.

Calcifer does that around his water dish. Felines, Pheromones, and Claws.
 
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