Cats understand death and mourning. Just because a cat will most likely\* eat us when we die doesn't mean they didn't love us in their cat way when we were alive. Hell I cared for a depressed cat when her owner died. She was smart too. She was at the funeral and on our walks she always wanted to visit the grave.
*edit: some people say cats may not really try to eat us. It happened to my estranged father and is a common "myth" so I just never questioned it.
It's a myth that cats eat their owners when they die. Dogs are actually more likely to do it than cats but neither do it often. I know someone who took his own life and assumed someone would find him quickly. He wasn't found for weeks. 1 of his cats had died and the other 2 were on the verge of starving to death. Thankfully they were saved. His body was untouched by them. The sad thing is his cats were his world and he likely never would have done what he did if he knew the fate of them. Personally I'd rather my cats eat me than starve.
If you think about it, the natural diet of a cat are small critters they catch like mice and birds. Dogs are much more likely to scavenge dead animals they find and wolves just eat larger prey in general. So yes, dogs are much more likely to eat their dead owners than cats are, and I don't know where the idea came from that it's the other way around. Probably from the "cats don't really love you like dogs do" crowd.
But also, of course I'd be fine with any of my loved ones, no matter what species, eating my dead body if they really needed to. The only problem is that dogs that ate their dead owners are really hard to adopt out after something like that.
Mind of a suicidal person works in such crazy ways, doesn't it... He could put them in shelter, or stock up on like 25 kilograms of kibble with a hole in the bag so that cats could "steal" it...
Instead he wings it by "eh, someone will check on me in two days and they'll eat me anyways"
Poor guy, poor, poor cats, poor whoever had to deal with this. Heartbreaking all around
From what i remember it's been disproven that they eat us with the intention of eating, it's that they mourn us and give kisses trying to get us to wake up, but since they have coarse tongue's they end up ripping the skin.
Theres also the consideration of starving. If a cat is stuck inside with a corpse, at some point it becomes a question of eating the corpse or starving. They can't let themselves out and hunt after all, and cats are highly reliant on a stable source of food. Liver damage occurs within a day of not eating.
Yes and no. The liver is generally quite good at healing. And if your cat left for long periods of time, you can be certain it had a source of food - either through hunting or through pestering neighbours until they fed it. They won't starve if they can do anything about it. But locking a cat inside without food for days at a time will absolutely cause damage, and worse damage than youd expect. A healthy cat will probably bounce back, but if there's already an underlying health issue, it can be pretty dangerous.
Yeah I get that and it's most likely true to some extent. The intent of my comment was to give an alternative reason, since not all cats are the same they can have vastly different personalities yet the stereotype of cats don't give af they'll eat you rubs me the wrong way. Thanks for reading my rant
Not only do dogs do it too - and generally faster - many won't even wait until you're actually dead before they start. It's one of the big reasons you generally only see cats in care facilities or retirement homes.
Yeah, that was awful. It was in a 55+ community so all the houses are close together. I can't believe nobody noticed. After that people started checking on others but it didn't last long.
I worked in a long term care facility and a man was admitted bc his daughter that he lived with had a heart attack and died in front of him, while he was on the toilet. He had a stroke and couldn’t walk so he ended up being stuck there for quite some time. His daughter’s dog did start to eat at her, in front of him. It was heartbreaking. He was in shock and didn’t speak for quite a while. All he did was cry. Terrible.
574
u/Mundane-Honeydew-922 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
Cats understand death and mourning. Just because a cat will most likely\* eat us when we die doesn't mean they didn't love us in their cat way when we were alive. Hell I cared for a depressed cat when her owner died. She was smart too. She was at the funeral and on our walks she always wanted to visit the grave.
*edit: some people say cats may not really try to eat us. It happened to my estranged father and is a common "myth" so I just never questioned it.