Pet Cats 'Manipulate' Owners by Setting Rules While Playing Fetch, New Study Says

Fetch is a game that dogs enjoy, but cats have been discovered to enjoy it as well. However, cats can 'manipulate' their adoring owners by setting their own rules of engagement.

Fetching Sessions

The study, which was published in Scientific Reports, polled 924 owners of 1,154 fetching cats in order to better understand the behavior.

Fetching seems to be an instinctual behavior for 94% of the cats, rather than being taught or acquired from another animal.

The majority of the cats claimed to have started fetching when they were kittens or young cats.

Play behavior can be observed in a variety of animal species, but it is most common among young animals.

The behavior was particularly common in purebred pets such as Siamese, Bengal, and Ragdoll cats, while the majority of the fetching cats were mixed breeds. Because many pet cats are mixed breeds, it is impossible to say whether one breed is more likely to play fetch than another.

"In general cats are notoriously difficult to train. Cats dictate their own fetching sessions, but it's a misconception that cats are not very sociable with their owners," said Jemma Forman, a doctoral researcher in the school of psychology at the University of Sussex and the first author of the paper.

Bedrooms and stairs were mentioned as common venues for fetch games.

They also discovered that 59% of cats played fetch up to 10 times each month. The cats retrieved the objects up to five times, or 55% of the time.

The study revealed that when cats initiated the game of fetch, they were willing to bring back an object more times on average.

Owners reported that cats initiated and finished fetch games more frequently than their owners, and that they played fetch more frequently and for longer lengths of time when they initiated games rather than their humans.

Forman explained that the perceived sense of control from the pet's perspective is beneficial for the cat's welfare and the relationship between the cat and the owner.

Playing With Specific Object

During the study, it was revealed that some cats preferred playing catch with specific objects.

Toys were the most often favorite item, followed by spherical items such as baubles or crumpled pieces of paper, and finally cosmetics.

Some cats would only fetch one type of item, have a favorite person to play with, or only play fetch at certain times of the day.

"The size of the pompom is important," one owner told the researchers. "I bought a larger pompom and she rejected it. I've also tried small items approximately the same size as the pompom and she rejects those as well."

Other owners reported being awakened in the middle of the night by the cat dumping toys on their pillows, ready to play.

In the survey, owners were asked to describe their cat's version of fetch. Some cats returned objects to their owners, whereas others simply returned a portion of the object or gradually dropped it further and further away.