Question of the day - Wednesday Feb 19

Furballsmom

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Hello everyone!

I'm currently listening to one small animal tearing around the house at top speed sounding like a herd of elephants, --this time because he wants to have his supervised time outside, but it's too cold;

What do you think causes cats to have the zoomies :runningcat::dizzycat:?
 
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di and bob

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I think the energy that is instinctive in cats probably builds up until it causes a burst of activity. I call it the 'cat crazies' and all my cats do it, though some more then others. Whats funny is that they will zoom around until another cat joins in, then they stop and watch the other cat, it is like they are embarrassed about their losing control!
PS i believe what PushPurrCatPaws PushPurrCatPaws said above too, cats are ceratures that live day by day, in the moment. They burst wide open sometimes with pure joy in being alive!
 

Tobermory

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Lily and Mocha both do post-poop zoomies; Iris just trots away quickly. It could be a deep survival instinct since using the box makes them vulnerable—they’re immobile—and the smell could attract predators. Mocha also zooms after breakfast, racing around and pouncing on her toys. Pure joy!
 

NY cat man

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"It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."-Winston Churchill
Nice Churchill reference
I'll go along with instinct. For example, when Stretch does his zoomie routine, he often will skid to a stop to attack one of the cat toys before resuming his tearing around, which usually involves leaping to the top of a cat tree, where he jerkily looks around for 'prey'. Burdock also does the morning zoomies, sometimes in tandem with Stretch. Our other cats seldom if ever exhibit such behavior, though.
 

Margret

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I think the energy that is instinctive in cats probably builds up until it causes a burst of activity. I call it the 'cat crazies' and all my cats do it, though some more then others. Whats funny is that they will zoom around until another cat joins in, then they stop and watch the other cat, it is like they are embarrassed about their losing control!
PS i believe what PushPurrCatPaws PushPurrCatPaws said above too, cats are ceratures that live day by day, in the moment. They burst wide open sometimes with pure joy in being alive!
:yeah:

Only slightly off-topic: I once read a mystery where the "clue" that solved it was the fact that the victim's cat did not get the zoomies at his regular time on the day of the murder, thus "proving" (because we all know that cats are psychic, right?) that the victim was already dead so the person with an alibi didn't have an alibi at all. Somehow I doubt that this would stand up in a court of law.

Margret
 

Beebster

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Eevee does zoomies around the house, a lot of the times from window to window bird watching, or just plain running from room to room.
This will mostly happen in the morning after I give both cats their wet food or any time after she wakes up.
We call it her "psycho mode" because she'll be running away if we try to pet her too! :lol:

Fluffy however is a lazy old lady, so she doesn't run around much anymore. She'll have her moments every so often where she'll run around the room and meow her head off, it's so funny because it'll only last about 5 minutes or so and then she lays back down.
 

Tik cat's mum

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I think it's more a indoor cat thing, because when I was growing up none of our outdoor cat's did this. Probably because they used up energy chasing mice. I think indoor cat's still need to burn of calories and exercise. The zoomies are brilliant.
 

Winchester

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Often. when there's more than one cat in the house, all it takes is one of them to challenge another one. Here, it's usually Mollipop who goes after Tabby. And then they start racing around the house. Or Muffin will go after Tabby and the two of them will go at it for a while. We can actually see a cat come walking into the living room, look around, and think, "Hmmm, who looks good today? Ahhh, there's a victim!" And whoosh! off they go. Back the hallway, into the computer room, back out of the computer room, into the living room, into the kitchen, and back out again. They land on each other (and honestly, they remind of Snoopy and his Cowabunga! when they're getting to leap), roll around on the floor for a couple minutes, the break apart, and do it all over again.

We also have a good selection of mice that "live" in a container of catnip for a while. I take a couple out of the container, throw them on the living room floor and away they go.
 

betsygee

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I don't know what causes it, but it sure is cute to watch. Sometimes it's just one of them, sometimes two or three chasing each other. We have a long hallway so they'll start in the living room, race down the hall into the TV room, around the furniture and back up the hallway to the living room.

It does sound like a mini herd of elephants, even when it's just one of them. Too cute. :heartshape:
 

artiemom

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Artie would always have the zoomies. He was an only cat, my heart-kitty.

When he pooped, he had to zoom around. Many times my scatter rug was all messed up ! So sweet to watch and hear. He was like orange lightening.

We also played hide and seek.. When it was his turn to hide, he would zoom into his hiding spot — usually with tail sticking out.

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Geoffrey is just slightly learning to play hide and chase. We have only done it a few times.
He has a very different personality than Artie.
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