Have you ever ever woken up in the midst of the night time and thought, “what the heck is that noise?” What am I saying, in fact you’ve got; you’ve got cats. I’m certain you’re all aware of the sound of your favourite feline about to violently eject their dinner onto your bedspread, which, if they may do at 7am as a substitute of 2am, would truly be useful. However as I lay awake one night time, listening to this new, unfamiliar sound, I knew it wasn’t the audio accompaniment to an impending upchuck; it was one thing completely different.
The difficulty with making an attempt to work out the place within the darkness an alien sound is coming from is that as quickly as you begin trying, the noise invariably stops, so it took me a number of nights to find the wrongdoer. My four-year-old ginger cat, Alex, vigorously licking a plastic bag.
Why?
This is a superb query, and one which I nonetheless don’t really feel like I’ve answered to my satisfaction. Initially, I assumed that it was simply that exact plastic bag; it will need to have contained one thing scrumptious, or had one thing spilled or sprayed on it. However no, it seems that Alex’s style in plastic is way from discerning.
If there may be any plastic bag left inside his attain, he will likely be there, licking away. He doesn’t do it through the day, and he doesn’t lick different plastic receptacles. Purchasing baggage, bin baggage, and particularly submit baggage have turn out to be Alex’s nocturnal obsession.
Regardless of having been a vet for properly over a decade, this was not a habits I had encountered earlier than, however because it seems, Alex just isn’t alone. Actually, there are a number of theories to clarify this explicit feline fetish, none of which will be definitively confirmed.
Is it the…
- Texture? Is it the feeling of tough tongue in opposition to this easy floor that appeals? However it should be one thing about the way in which that the bag strikes, as different plastic objects simply don’t reduce it.
- Taste? I admit, this isn’t one thing I’ve examined myself, however it’s onerous to think about {that a} plastic bag could be significantly mouthwatering. Plus, we’ve got round 20 occasions extra style buds than cats; certainly they aren’t detecting one thing we aren’t.
- Odor? That is the place cats have us beat. 200 million olfactory receptors vs. our paltry 5 million, and this sense additionally contributes to how issues style.
- Chemical compounds? We all know that plastic baggage are horrible for the surroundings, they usually’re not too nice for us both. Chemicals like phenols and phthalates have been discovered to have some properties that mimic or block human hormones like estrogens. Maybe that is what attracts a cat.
- Sound? The rustling sound the plastic makes whereas being licked may very well be an element, though one would anticipate that this is able to encourage them to play with the bag fairly than treat it like a popsicle.
There’s one other risk that I can’t ignore, and that’s that Alex could be a sandwich wanting a picnic. However in his protection, other than a few little eccentricities equivalent to his “somersault of happiness”, the way in which he at all times crosses his entrance legs once they’re not splayed out in unusual angles, and his weekly behavior of sitting on the kitchen counter ready for his teaspoon of milk, he typically appears to be of fairly sound thoughts!
Am I Frightened?
Look, there may be at all times the chance that Alex might swallow, inhale, or choke throughout his late-night licking, however I’ve by no means noticed, or seen proof of, him biting or chewing the plastic. Simply the tender, considerably obsessive, licking.
The truth is, he’s in all probability at far larger danger of being buffeted within the head by the cushion I ship flying in direction of him at 3am. I’ve discovered to carry out a nightly reconnaissance to be sure that any baggage have been fastidiously stashed away or disposed of; maybe Alex has simply been making an attempt to get me to tidy up a bit extra!
*
We must always all be utilizing much less plastic, and if one of many unintended advantages of seeing a discount in its use is that I’m much less more likely to be woken by the lick, lick, lick of Alex’s unusual preoccupation, then that’s simply another reason to get on board. After all, with 5 cats and 5 canines, considered one of them’s sure to do one thing to maintain me awake!
