Yes, Cats Play Fetch, Too

Cat fetching a toy.

Source: Tony Harrison, via Flickr.

A few years ago, Elizabeth Renner posted a cute video of her cat on Twitter. Renner, a psychologist at Northumbria University, had captured her cat expectantly dropping a toy in front of her. The video caught the attention of psychologist David Leavens at the University of Sussex, who remembered a cat he had owned who also played fetch. Their curiosity was sparked, but they found limited research on play behavior in adult cats, and almost nothing beyond anecdotes about cats playing fetch.

To find out more, Renner and Leavens worked with Jemma Forman, a Ph.D. student at the University of Sussex studying cat behavior and cognition. “Fetching just isn’t associated with cats at all,” Forman says. “Even I was a bit of a skeptic—how many cats really do play fetch? But it turns out, it is probably more common than we thought.”

In a new study, Forman, Renner, and Leavens present the results of a survey of 924 cat owners who once had or currently have a fetching cat. The great majority (94 percent) of owners reported that their cat began playing fetch without any explicit training.

They also found that most of the time, it is the cat, and not the owner, who initiates and ends games of fetch—and cats tended to play fetch more enthusiastically and for longer periods when they, rather than their owners, initiated games. The researchers suggest that cats’ perceived sense of control over playtime may benefit the cat’s welfare as well as their relationship with their owner.

Making Fetch Happen

The team also asked survey respondents to answer a few open-ended questions about their cat’s fetching behavior.

Waiting for a throw.

Source: Bryan Ochalla, via Flickr.

“I’d say the main takeaway is that there is a lot of variation in exactly how cats will play fetch with their owners,” Forman says. “There were so many individual differences between cats, and also between what a fetching session would look like from one owner-cat pair to another.”

For instance, cats displayed individual preferences for the objects and members of a household with which they would play fetch. Cat toys accounted for just under 40 percent of objects used in games of fetch; cats preferred to fetch miscellaneous household objects (e.g., hair ties or bottle parts) or objects made or thrown opportunistically by owners (e.g., crumpled paper). A few cats chose truly strange objects to fetch, including cigarette packets, earplugs, straws, and playing cards.

Cats could also be particular about how an object was thrown—with some fetching the object only if it was thrown a certain distance away, and where the play took place, with common locations for games being bedrooms and stairs.

The team is currently planning a follow-up study in which owners will videotape a fetching interaction with their cat. (If you have a cat that fetches, you can sign up to be informed of when the study opens up.) Part of the aim will be to examine the social aspects of this play behavior, Renner says.

“We are more confident that fetching in dogs has a strong social element to it,” she says. “I think more research is needed as to whether cats also see fetch as a social interaction with the owners, or whether the game is more based around the object itself.”

These findings open up the door to more questions. “The jury is still out on the evolutionary roots and purpose of this behavior,” Renner says. “Is it adaptive? Is it just playful? Is it fun? We don't know yet. But this is the start of us being able to ask more questions.”

Forman says the results also highlight how important it is to play with your cat—ideally, in short sessions a few times a day. Playing has advantages for cats and owners, including strengthening the bond between them.

Forman does have a disclaimer, however: “Don’t be disheartened if your cat doesn’t play fetch,” she says. “It’s about reading the behaviors of your individual cat and understanding when and how they want to initiate a play session and being responsive to that. Then, there will be more subsequent play sessions in the future, if it’s a positive interaction on the cat’s own terms.”

Facebook/LinkedIn image: Lipsett Photography Group/Shutterstock