My cat and her toy

[peaxie]

Hi everyone, 

So it makes almost a year I have Stella, a new kitty I decided to adopt when she was a year old, so now she's almost 2. When I got her, his previous owner also gave me a stuffed, blue rabbit plush. He told me it was her toy and that she often drags it around the house and plays a lot with it. He told me she has it since she's a baby. At first I thought it was weird, but I took it anyway. With time, I realized it was actually a thing ; That rabbit really seems special to her, because she doesn't do that with any other toy ( although we have a bunch ).

It's strange because she treats it as if it were her baby : As I said, she drags it with her almost everywhere, she licks/''cleans'' it, plays with it, sleeps with it, sometimes she even brings it to me and meows until I take it from her mouth. My question is, why does she do that ? And why is it only with that specific toy ? Why is she so affectionnate with it ?

I've read many situations where the cat brings you a specific toy as a ''prey'', but I never saw anything like this ... She's very nurturing with it.

Why does she behave like this ?

 

[detroitcatlady]

Since she has had it since she was a kitten, it could be an attachment thing. Something about it could be comforting to her. Honestly it sounds so much like how kids are with blankets or their favorite toy when they are little. Some cats knead on people or blankets for the same reasons. My cat shadow does both and both seem to comfort her. Sometimes kittens who are away from their mother at a very young age  are more likely to behave this way with objects or toys.

This is so similar to what my cat Shadow does with her favorite toy. She doesn't lick it or show affection though, she just drags it around all of the time and refuses to play with other toys. Hers is a chew toy that belonged to my other cats when they were kittens and when I brought Shadow into my house she was only a couple of weeks old and became fixated on it. It's a rubber chew toy. She is obsessed with it. She can't be without it. She brings it to me and meows until I throw it across the room, she then fetches it and attacks it as if it were prey. She often wakes me up in the middle of the night by dropping the toy on the bed and meows until I get up and throw it for her. If I ignore her, she will drop it in my face or on my head or sit there meowing all night long, so I have gotten used to getting up and playing with her in the middle of the night. Sometimes she will sleep on top of it, as if she is guarding it. lol If she can't find the toy or it gets stuck under the furniture she becomes annoyed and I have to find it for her. I even put it in her carrier with her whenever I go somewhere with her.

 

[luna tuna]

My cat Luna is about ten, and I've only had her since January, but she's got toys like this. The first one was an old sock of mine stuffed with scrap fabric that she carried everywhere. We lost it somewhere. Now, she's got a little Mickey Mouse toy she used to completely ignore. It's her favorite now, and while she plays fetch with her other toys she's a lot more affectionate with Mickey. I find him in my bed almost every day. She gets pretty upset if we throw Mickey across the room. She runs after him and then protects him from us.
I don't have much background on her, but I sometimes think she might've been taken from her momma too early. She's definitely very affectionate with her Mickey toy, though. He's with her when she naps half the time and sometimes she doesn't want anything to do with any other toy.

 

[mingsmongols]

It an attachment thing. She has associated positive memorys with the toy.Something really good happened to her and the toy was there, she then associates that toy with the good feeling she had at the time and she now believes the toy is the source of that good feeling. It doesn't happen often but it's a good thing. Your cat is intelligent and is able to make long term associations based on prior experiences.