Mary Allen
“The cat won’t let your mouse”… Is that really true? We explain whether you can train your cat to stop hunting and what you should absolutely avoid.
If you have an outdoor cat at home, you know this very well: if it was just lying peacefully in the grass, it suddenly jumps up when there is a movement or a noise, sneaks up on you, and a little later you have a more or less pleasant present in front of your feet. We reveal whether it really has to be like this.
That’s why cats hunt
As predators, cats have a natural hunting instinct. And it’s still there when you feed your darling regularly. So your cat does not hunt because it is hungry, but because it is following its natural instincts. By the way, she also follows them when she puts her prey at your feet: With this, she wants to encourage you to hunt like a young kitten.
When does hunting become problematic?
In itself, the hunting of outdoor cats is therefore quite natural. However, it can still cause problems: depending on where you live, birds may be nesting nearby. Young birds in particular are almost completely at the mercy of cats. If these are protected or endangered species, this is particularly painful for nature.
This is also due to the fact that cats have now become very popular pets and are therefore numerous, while in the past only wild cats naturally regulated the bird population. Especially in residential areas, cats can be quite dangerous to native birds.
In addition, there are feral domestic cats that threaten the now rare wild cats, as the species compete for the same food. The natural hunting behavior is therefore not entirely unproblematic.
Incidentally, hunting is also extremely unpleasant in a completely different area: If the cat bites your feet, the hunting instinct is also behind it.
This is NOT how you should stop hunting
So should you stop your cat from hunting? Don’t forget that instinct is a part of your pet that cannot be easily broken. Does the cat throw things down? This is also part of instinctive behavior. If anything, you should approach the subject very sensitively.
A simple tip that is often mentioned is a collar with a bell for the cat. The ringing warns every bird from afar. However, this has bad consequences for your velvet paw, which can be driven really crazy by the constant ringing in its sensitive ears. In addition, there is always a risk of injury or even strangulation with collars.
You should also avoid other deterrent methods: disturbing the cat while hunting with noise or even spraying it with a water gun will only damage your relationship with your animal. Since your darling follows a natural drive, he will not understand what he did wrong anyway.
Here’s what you can do against hunting
If you want to protect breeding birds and their nests, in particular, you can use the nesting times as a guide and only let your cat outside for a while (May to June) under supervision or less altogether. Although this is not easy for your darling, it protects the endangered young birds.
During this time, you should make your sweetheart’s life inside all the more entertaining by playing with him diligently. Joint activities or interesting toys not only promote the relationship but also stimulate the gray cells of your little fur ball. In this way, you exhaust him so much that he then loses his desire to hunt.
Spaying or neutering can also be helpful. This often reduces the hunting instinct and you can prevent your stray from bonding with other cats – maybe even feral cats – and you can soon look down on even more hunting-loving offspring.
Last but not least, you can also prepare trees on which birds nest with cuffs or special defensive belts. These look martial but are completely harmless if you follow the assembly instructions. Your little cheeky rascal can then no longer climb up so easily and the young birds are safe.