The cat keeps coming into my office, complaining, and scratching/pawing at the side of a metal filing cabinet. Anyone know what he wants?
I’ve seen cats miss the litterbox or get followed back out of the box by a cling-on. (It’s hairball season). The, err, ‘caboose’ uncouples and ends up on the floor, & the cat tries to forlornly try to scape hardwood or linoleum, etc., over it to cover it up.
This cat is using that motion, but there’s no derailed cargo to bury and he’s scraping at a vertical surface, not the floor. What is he doing this for?
It could just be a way to get attention. Only you’d be in a better position to tell if it looks like he wants something IN or ON the cabinet, or wants to be UP, or just wants to annoy the heck out of you so you’ll do something else for him (food, treats, play, other attention). I guess it’s not just stretching behavior (I have a cat who always reaches up on door jambs)? BTW, have you provided a vertical scratcher?
Hard to know. But one thing with male cats is that if they begin pottying frequently and strangely it’s sometimes a sign of a UTI, to which they’re prone.
So notice whether he’s actually trying to pee in odd places or just scratching.
Another time cats sometimes use the “bury the poo” gesture is when they don’t care for the food choice you’ve offered.
Hard to say. That’s a bit of an odd one for me, the “covering-it-up” motion. I assume he’s using one paw mainly, right? Also, is he focusing on the cabinet as if there’s something inside he wants to investigate, or is he more just generally trying to get your attention?
If you find he left you a “gift” somewhere, it may be you have one very smart cat there who’s calling for a cleanup and can communicate at least that simple thing abstractly. It’s possible.
Based on our cats’ behaviour, either there is a mouse in or under your filing cabinet, or there is an attractive, possibly sunny spot on top of the filing cabinet with a commanding view of the room, or the back of your head.
One of our cats likes to sleep on the old laser-printer on top of the four-drawer filing-cabinet. Getting there and back entails cascades of two-ring binders (we have two-ring binders and four-ring binders here, whereas in the states you have three-ring binders. I blame that circus bloke, myself). Once there it will spend the day.
But if a cat is showing interest in a piece of furniture that it ignored before, odds are that a mouse is involved. And in our house, the odds are that the cat put the mouse there in the first place.
Our cat has learned to do that motion on the front door of our next door neighbours when he wants them to let him in. No damage to the door, but a scratching sound just loud enough to hear from inside. Presumably they can’t hear it if the TV is on, but I don’t know.
I would think that if there was a mouse there would be some sniffing of the cabinet going on too. I vote for attention. If you start petting him, does he stop? Or does he continue despite attention?
It sounds to me like he is just messing with you. Cats are smart this way. What better way to upset a person than running sharp claws accross metal. Just be thankful that he does not have access to a chalk board.-C
The biologist in me can’t help noticing that cats use the burying gesture for anything they don’t like, self-produced or otherwise. Our cats try to figuratively bury cups of coffee. I usually see perked ears, dilated pupils and alert wishkers if there is prey around. So I vote for there being something in the cabinet that offends the delicate sensibilities of your cat.