Most cat owners are well acquainted with domesticated felines’ tendency to hunt, despite their humans providing food for them. Many have been left little “gifts” on their front stoop or, perhaps, even in their homes. Scientists have likened the play behavior of cats to hunting; a recent study investigated how indoor cats and indoor-outdoor cats play differently in an effort to examine potential differences in predatory behavior. Indoor cats were those which were strictly not allowed outside. Indoor-outdoor cats were those which were allowed to freely move between inside and outside.
They used three different tests to explore differences in behavior. In the first test, they presented the cat with a ball. They measured the amount of time it took for the cat to approach the ball, as well as if the cat made contact with the ball at all. In the second test, they swung a chaser wand in front of the cat, waiting for them to attempt to catch it. They measured how often the cat attempted to catch the dangling object and took note of how many times they failed in capturing it. The third test involved playing several types of noises on a speaker: a chirping bird, a squeaking mouse, crumpling paper, or rustling plastic. They measured how long it took for the cat to begin searching for the source of noise and how long they spent searching overall. All three of these tasks give insight to the general interest and curiosity of each cat.
The researchers found that, generally, indoor cats were more interested in the different stimuli and spent more time exploring surroundings. Indoor cats both approached the ball sooner and played with the ball more frequently. Indoor cats were also quicker to search for noises and searched for longer periods of time than indoor-outdoor cats. These findings suggest that indoor-only cats engage in more predatory play behavior.
There are several possible explanations for indoor-only cats being more interested in the prey-like stimuli that were presented. Perhaps the indoor-outdoor cats have more opportunities to engage in such behavior and didn’t feel the need to spend more time doing so. The indoor cats could have simply been eager for a stimulating activity. Studies have shown that a play session can decrease the amount of prey that a cat brings home.
Another explanation is that indoor-outdoor cats are more knowledgeable about live prey, are aware that the stimuli they encounter within the house are not the same, and therefore have no interest in “catching” it. For example, in test three, indoor cats searched extensively for bird noises, but indoor-outdoor cats didn’t for the most part. Previous research has found that birds are the most difficult prey for cats to successfully catch in the wild. It’s possible that the indoor-outdoor cats weren’t interested in attempting to search for an animal they knew was very difficult to catch, or they knew that birds are not found in houses.
Another interesting thing that was analyzed in this study was the relationship between the time a cat was raised with their mother and how successful they were in catching the chaser wand. Cats that were raised with their mother for longer than 2 months as kittens caught the chaser wand much more than the cats that were separated from their mothers before they were 8 weeks-old. Previous studies have shown that kittens learn how to hunt from their mothers, which is consistent with these findings. It’s also possible that play between siblings plays a role in developing predatory behavior.
More research is needed to investigate the concrete mechanisms that are responsible for the development of predatory behavior and how they might interact with relationships between mothers and their kittens.
Pyari, M. S., Uccheddu, S., Lenkei, R., & Pongracz, P. (2021). Inexperienced but still interested – Indoor-only cats are more inclined for predatory play than cats with outdoor access. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 241. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2021.105373
