Our dear cats are born with hunting and chasing instincts.

So you may ask, why does our cat still look for food when we provide them everything they need for susteinance, even for twice or thrice a day?

The answer lies once again with their instinct and nature. It is the actuality that cats are inborn hunters.

Although dogs are known to be the hunters and even the companion of the people looking out for the people on the run, cats have their own distinction

Even if they were still kittens, they were made to chase.

Kittens are programmed from birth to chase. Through play, they develop the coordination and timing needed to successfully capture their target. They learn to adjust their speed to the speed of moving objects. They learn to gauge distance by pouncing. Play gives the kitten a chance to learn to make judgments by experience. 

They say that dogs are playful, but so are cats.

It is a common notion that cats play with yarn, but they entertain themselves not just through the use of these threads. In reality,

Then I came across this artcle, which said that the cat's need to hunt is independent of its urge to eat. Cats hunt for the sake of hunting. 

It is in their nature and their way of life.

he cat's need to hunt is independent of its urge to eat. Cats hunt for the sake of hunting. 

http://pets.indiatimes.com/articleshow/12265036.cms

Cats are born hunters. Even at four to six weeks kittens start stalking and pouncing on the contents of their food bowl. Later, the twitching tail of the kittens' mother becomes a surrogate mouse. Hunting skills are refined under careful supervision of the mother. The kitten watches and imitates the mother and siblings, and the mother will bring the kittens live prey for practice. This is why wild and feral cats generally

kill their prey with a swift bite to the neck, but kittens who never learn this skill from their mothers 'play' with their prey when older, but fail to make a clean kill. (There are also other reasons for the 'play', as explained below.) The mother's role as personal trainer is also one reason why a mature cat may bring her humans a live mouse as a hint that their hunting skills are below par.

For a cat hunting is a survival instinct. Unlike most other animals (including dogs), cats' bodies do not produce much taurine. Taurine is an essential amino-acid - one of the building blocks of proteins. Without taurine, no animal can survive for long, so cats make up for their taurine deficiency through their diet. Since only meat provides enough taurine to keep a cat going, your cat is what biologists call an 'obligatory carnivore'. It is important to remember that although dogs can survive well on a vegetarian diet, cats can not. They literally have to kill to live. (Or sub-contract the job to humans, which is basically the same thing).

http://www.perfectpaws.com/help3.html#.VYZIaVWqqko

The Predator's Legacy

Felines are predators. In the wild, all felines hunt. The silent paws, sharp teeth, excellent

night vision and incredible physical abilities are all perfectly suited for the cat's natural role as

a solitary nocturnal hunter.

In fact, the cat's domestication in ancient Egypt had a lot to do with its hunting skills. The

Egyptians brought cats into their towns and villages, to achieve effective rodent control in

their granaries. The cats' success as hunters brought them appreciation, admiration and

even the status of gods.

The cats' hunting skills have also helped them spread around the world aboard ships that

carried them as valuable mousers. Even today, barn cats all over the world are still prized for

that ability.

However, in the past few decades attitudes seem to have changed, as cats became

cherished companions, rather than working animals. At the same time concern for wildlife

conservation has evolved. Cats have been accused of endangering birds and rodents and

concerned animal lovers demanded that they must be stopped from hunting.

This appeal coincided with the growing inclination to protect pet cats by confining them

indoors, and so many cats today no longer hunt. As cat owners, we still have the pleasure of

watching these felines' hunting skills demonstrated during playtime.

A Cruel Game?

Not only does cat play resemble hunting, but also hunting routines can seem surprisingly like

play.

A cat that has captured prey will usually not kill it at once. Rather, the cat is likely to carry the

prey in its mouth to a familiar place and begin what seems like a long and cruel game.

The cat will release the critter; let it try to escape and then bat at it again with its paw, often

throwing it into the air. This can go on for hours and looks much like the way your cat plays

with a toy mouse.

For generations, observers of hunting cats have accused them of unnecessary cruelty.

Modern behavior studies have determined that no game is afoot (no pun intended...). What

seem like a mean sport are actually basic safety measures, necessary for the cat's survival.

Consider this from the cat's point of view. That small, or not so small, rodent can and will bite

back if given the chance. A mouse's bite may be small but it can easily become infected and

cause disease and even death. No cats in the wild would want to take that chance.

As cats are far-sighted, it is difficult for them to safely launch a death bite on live prey. The

solution is to thoroughly exhaust and weaken the prey to the point where it is too dazed to

defend itself. Only then will the cat actually kill its prey.

Look What The Cat Brought In

Owners that do let their cat outdoors might be faced with an occasional gift in the form of

dead or injured prey. Cat Behavior Cat Behavior researcher Roger Tabor explains that this

act stems from several reasons.

On one level, this is much like the mother cat bringing dazed prey to her kittens - the cat tries

to help us acquire hunting skills, which we obviously lack.

On another, more functional level, this is part of the cat's hunting process. As the cat needs

to tire out the prey with repetitive capture and release, she pre

fers to do so on her home turf. There she has the upper hand when the prey attempts to

escape, as she knows every inch of the area.

 

So if your cat goes outside and comes back with a live gift, do not scold her for doing so -

after all this is what millions of years of evolutions taught her to do. If you want to prevent

your cat from hunting, you will probably need to keep her inside.

Cat Hunting skills have never really been lost throughout the whole

process of their domestication. Your kitty will still feel the need to go out

and hunt birds, mice, frogs, in fact anything that is small enough to catch. 

This is a puzzle to most people as they can’t understand why cats

continue to hunt, especially as we provide plentiful food and water for

them. 

Funnily enough it was the hunting skills that first endeared the feline

population to humans in the first place.

Thousands of years ago when humans began to grow their own crops,

mice and rats began to become a problem in the storing of these

foodstuffs.

The cat’s ability to kill rodents with ease and their apparent acceptance of

humans meant that they were welcomed into people’s homes.

So cat hunting was admired, in fact cats which were prolific hunters

became very valuable animals and their off spring could be bought and

sold for large sums of money.

OUTLINE

Speed-trivia- personal pet-trivia-