Why cat meows/yowling while carrying toy in its mouth?
If you are a curious cat owner like us, you have properly wondered why your cat bring toys to you in its mouth and start meowing/yowling at you all of a sudden. If that happened during bed time, you would definitely notice it.
Imagine you are sleeping in your bed and your cat has played with her toy mouse for a while now. All of a sudden, she jumps onto your bed and start meowing with the toy in her mouth. And your cat wouldn’t stop meowing until you pet her and compliment her. You properly don’t understand why you did that in the first place, but it seemed to help calm her down. And from that day on, your cat kept repeating this practice every now and then and you are left wondering why this is happening in the first place and whether your response to her is appropriate. Such a behavior is commonly spotted by many cat owners, yet few have a clue as to why cats would meow or yowl while carrying toy in its mouth.
To explain this we have to go all the way back to Egypt 6000 years ago when cats were first introduced to men. Food was very scarce at that time and men had to hunt animals to put food on the table. Men domesticated cats to become hunting partners and they would depend on each other in a symbiotic relationship. Men provided shelter/protection from larger predators and in return their cats would provide men with daily food source. Men chose to keep which cat would all come down to one important thing: Whether or not the cat would show you what it had killed and bring that food to you. So even if another cat is a much better hunter, men still preferred to keep the cat that actually returned with food. That’s properly how these instinctual habits in cats got passed on to current generations. Except that today, cats are less exposed to outdoor and some cats are 100% indoor, so it chooses to show its benevolence through toys and objects that it is playing with.
What is the meowing/yowling about?
Sometimes toys get cats into their hunting mode, and they feel they have made a catch for you (her family). It is meant to be a nice gesture on their part. They also want recognition and attention, so that is where the meowing and yowling comes from. If cats were able to speak they would have said something like: “Dinner is served, I caught it for you, come and get it!”. All you got to do is to praise your cat, rub her ears and tell her she is great. She will then calm down, then probably do it again in another day or so. Cats have emotions and natural drives, and they like to be cuddled and nurtured. The unwise thing to do is to scold your cat when she brings you things in her mouth. As cat owners we need to show compassion and love to our cats even if those old habits never die.
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