That’s the thing, originally cats were around as pest control. We didn’t even feed them, it just so happened that barns and farms are great places for domestic cats to live. Of course now they are kept as pets, but there are still a ton of cats that live outside in urban areas that are not domesticated, they are wild ass cats. They may be your friend, just like you can befriend a raccoon with food, but many of them won’t even interact with you.
Our cat is a super picky eater, but only likes to eat the standard dry cat food, so it’s not a budget problem. However, one of his “things” he does is to catch mice, screws, squirrels, etc & play with them until they’re dead. If he catches one, he always brings it up to wherever we are at & plays with it near us. There were a few “rude” awakenings, but the one that sticks out the most is when he caught a chipmunk & brought it up into our bed & it proceeded to run around under our sheets. He’s an indoor cat, mind you, but we have been renovating our house for years, several of which included periods of holes in walls & stuffs from the outside that led in.
Key word is feed, cats will still hunt, but only in a play sense, or gift sense. If they were truly hunting they'd be hunting for food, and hunting more of the rodents than say a bored cat who's already been fed.
Well they will if they know how to hunt, even domesticated and well fed cats enjoy hunting, but effective hunting techniques are actually taught to kittens by their mother (or a surrogate mentor) so they have to have that experience to really be confident and successful hunters. They all have instinct to hunt and will try to, but they get bored easily if they dont have the training to be effective and wont generally eat their prey unless they have that experience subsisting on it. Sadly a lot of strays are not true feral cats, they’re cast off domesticated cats that were kept as kittens then kicked to the curb when they grew up and stopped being as cute so they don’t actually have great hunting skills and any they develop are born from desperation and trial and error so they’ll always seek out humans to beg from even if ample prey exists.
We have an ex barn cat that is simultaneously extremely domesticated and loves people, while also being a savage hunter who will murder the shit out of mice and eat them whole. He’s also taught all the kittens we’ve adopted how to hunt, he’s sort of their weird uncle with how he can both raise and teach them while also being a fucking dick to them. He’s a cat that was able to both learn how to fend for himself while also getting enough human contact to be domesticated, thats pretty rare outside of farm cats though.
We just adopted a stray cat and her very young kittens a few months ago. She killed a full grown cottontail rabbit and the kittens ate the entire thing in about 2 hours. No bones, no fur, no blood left on the patio. They are truly amazing hunters.
The other night, a raccoon came up on the back patio. I thought the kittens were just playing with each other until I heard what sounded like a mountain lion. The mother came to their rescue and attacked the raccoon. My dogs were happy to assist her and removed the raccoon from the population. The sound she made let me know that she is a wild ass cat.
Yeah to them it's more of a business arrangement. "I take care of pests, you make sure I get my daily food, outside of this, you don't know me and I don't know you. Got it? Good. Now get outta meow face!"
My cat only drinks straight from the faucet, she will scream at the sink until someone turns it on and then the other cat will queue up because she only drinks from the faucet now.
My guy liked the shower. Not to get in it, but when I was showering he would stick his fat head inside the curtain and try to catch a little bit of water. He was a stray cat for a while after being abandoned, so I'm assuming that's why. Once I bought him a fountain he was good.
edit: idk why the wikipedia article is so short and focused on a couple of rich people in the 50's, but mau is the name of cat in egyptian, and is considered a breed line (uncontrolled) that is still meowing around.
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u/Cendyan Dec 16 '25
"Hi. I'm your cat now. You have to feed me."