Why Does My Cat Scratch The Floor Around His Food Bowl

Some cats may take this behavior to an extreme spending a good deal of time scratching at the floor or kneading the carpet around their food bowl.

Why does my cat scratch the floor around his food bowl.

Since this would be place where he ate his meals his food dish becomes his lair in the home. Ditty s motivation for scratching the floor and wall around her food after she eats differs from why she s scratching the wall after using her litterbox. In the wild felines must hunt to eat. Scratching around the food bowl is a common behaviour in cats which is completely normal.

Now that you know at a high level why this happens. Another theory is that as cats in the wild tend to eat where they sleep they don t want a rotting carcass lying around. Whether it s a favored tree or a little cave it s somewhere that belongs only to him. Why do cats dig and scratch around their food bowl.

Cats have been noticed to scratch around their food bowls even when their bowls are placed inside the house on tiles or carpets. Wild cats as well as feral cats have all been observed burying any uneaten food to avoid attracting predators or scavengers. In the wild a cat has some sort of lair. Other than just digging his paws around his food dish he may also try and hide things there.

Although this behavior is obsolete in captivity it still happens which confuses cat owners. What does the scratching mean. Even though there is no soil to scratch or move around this behavior remains present in cats because it is related to an instinct. So when my cat eats some of her food first then begins to paw around the dish she s following an instinct that doesn t make much sense for her circumstances she is after all a house cat.

In some cases cats will also drag objects such as towels on top of their food bowls.