Friday Kitty Corner: Does your cat scratch around the food bowl?

- Leonardo da Vinci

Hello my dear friends and happy Friday! Yet another weekend is upon us and I couldn't be happier. Just less than two weeks left until the end of this school year and just over a week until summer solstice.  Yay!  Exciting times. :)

So what about them cats?  Why do they scratch around their food bowl?

 Not every cat does that but Hercules surely does.  After he finishes his food he'll scratch all around his food bowl as if he was trying to bury the leftovers.  Sometimes he'll give just few scratches and other times he'll stay there for couple of minutes scratching from each and every side several times over.  Now there is something worth noting.  He doesn't do this every time and he does this only to his wet food bowl.  I've been trying to figure out whether this activity is connected to a particular wet food or maybe how he feels about the particular food but there appears to be no common denominator.  To a mere mortal such as myself, this appears to be completely random.

I think this activity is instinctual.  In the wild cats try to hide/bury the leftover food to protect it from scavengers. Today's domestic cats, even though they don't need to do this, may have retained this innate behaviour from their ancestors and some demonstrate it to our amusement.

Now, I did say some cats do not do this.  Oliver never, ever scratches around his food bowl.  

Namaste