Making a Cat Less Cat-like To Fix Behavior

[nwc]

Stumbled across this article from a few years back. It says that scientists might soon be able to edit out the hunting gene from a cat's genome for cat parents who are grossed out or offended by hunting behavior.

I can't imagine that this would be a good idea. I thought that a cat's drive to play and do cat stuff was largely motivated by its drive to hunt. But maybe this would be of use to people with legitimate behavior problems. Just as spaying and neutering makes cats less annoying, what kind of behavior problems do you think could be preemptively solved by turning off the hunting gene in a cat?

 

[kashmir64]

Personally, I wouldn't change a thing about my cats. They aren't a perfect angel all the time, but I love every little detail about them. Even those times when Samai thinks my arm is a chew toy and I look like a mummy for a week.

 

[rubysmama]

I can't imagine that turning out well, at all. I'd think their hunting gene would be related to their hunger gene, and who knows what kinds of eating issues would arise once the instinct to hunt for food was gone.

 

[fionasmom]

Maybe scientists should worry about editing out some cancer genes, or those for other serious illnesses, before they worry about the fact that a cat might bring a mouse inside.

I would worry that gene editing is not refined enough to allow a safe result. Personally, the fact that cats hunt has never bothered me and certainly solved a rat problem in my house.

Maybe people who would potentially like cats if they weren't really cats should consider another pet.

 

[susanm9006]

I suspect that the cat parent who can afford to pay for a genetically modified cat isn’t going to let loose this so expensive kitty outdoors to chase the birds .

 

[She's a witch]

There are places in the world where domestic cats unnecessarily destroy natural habitat, including endangered birds, and I can imagine such non hunting cats would have easier life in places like this (at least they wouldn’t be blamed). I understand they talk about selective breeding rather than “genetically modifying”.

 

[Neko-chan's mama]

IMO, if you're not ok with a cat's natural behavior, you shouldn't have one.

 

[Willowy]

You kind of already can get a cat that's "less cat-like", as many purebreds have most of their hunting instinct bred out. Persians, Ragdolls, etc. But most cats are not, and will never be, specially-bred or gene-edited, and most people don't want to allow an expensive purebred to run around loose. So I don't think that would ever make a difference. Maybe he just said that to placate the anti-cat people in Australia (since he mentioned marsupials).

 

[She's a witch]

IMO, if you're not ok with a cat's natural behavior, you shouldn't have one.

I think if someone doesn’t like birds/mice on the doorstep, he/she doesn’t have to resign from the luxury of having a cat (especially when every owner matters, there are too many cats), it’s enough to keep the cat as indoor cat only. I’m ok with cat’s natural behavior, feeding them raw and stuff, but it doesn’t mean that seeing a dying creature on my doorstep would be easy for me. It’s easily avoidable.

Edited to add: mating, spraying, scratching are all natural behaviors, and yet most of us are not ok with them

 

[nwc]

I can't imagine that turning out well, at all. I'd think their hunting gene would be related to their hunger gene, and who knows what kinds of eating issues would arise once the instinct to hunt for food was gone.

I've always heard that these two instincts were independent of one another in cats: they like killing, and they eat to survive. Which is why I wondered about how their play drive would be effected.

It has been mentioned a couple of times here that purebreds have often already had the hunting gene selectively bred out of them. Are they as playful? If so, why? Why chase around the ball or ribbon or feather if you don't have that prey drive?