Cat eating cardboard

[Judi_bk]

Coco likes to destroy cardboard boxes.  She bites bits off them and she does spit the bits out.  The biting looks such hard work but for Coco the harder the better



Anybody know why?

[frankie]

I had one that used to eat wool when I lived in UK.  My son came to stay once and left a new jumper on his bed.  When he came to put it on she'd chewed a big hole in the front.  My vet said it is mainly the females who have these obsessions.
It is the killer instinct that makes your cat chew the hard cardboard, Judi.  It's a substitute for chomping down in bones - it'll be bringing half eaten rats in soon...  Lovely photo of her.

[Roscoe]

My two girls bring all sorts of beasties in, but then drop  them and say 'here you are mum a present', always alive. 

[frankie]

It is the live pressies which concern me.  I can happily cope with dead rats and rabbits but the live ones are more difficult.  I once had one that one of the cats got bored with, sitting on the mantelpiece over the fire in direct line with my eyes when I was sat watching TV.  I tried all ways of getting each cat to deal with it with no luck. It seemed happy to just sit there, hiding behind a jug and I really did not want to have to handle it. I came inside after it had lodged with us for 2 days and could really smell it.  It was at that point I knew I had to remove it.  2 Pairs of thick gardening gloves on, I moved the jug and it shot down and across the floor, past all 3 bemused cats, straight up a curtain.  I managed to get it's claws out of the voile and throw it outside.  It was around 13cms from head to end of tail.  Incredibly pretty, nothing like the UK sewer rats, with a pale fawn tummy and slightly darker back.
I now know where the saying 'smell a rat' comes from.  They do!