Yes, some cats like to play fetch. It’s science!

Cats play fetch longer, with more retrievals, when they initiate the game.

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[LeftCoastRusty]

When cats play fetch with a person, I imagine the cat is thinking “I finally trained this human to play fetch.”

 

[Aleamapper]

Neither of my cats play fetch, even though they love to chase any toys I throw around the house for them. Is there a good way to train them?

 

[Goofball_Jones]

We've had two cats now that would play fetch when they were younger, but one grew out of it after about a year and a half. Our current young cat is just over a year and she'll bring up a toy for me to throw for her, but while she used to bring it back right away, she'll just chase it and then lose interest.

Cats are weird.

 

[Aurich]

This is Mei. She's the first cat I've had that likes to play fetch, and she loves it. We have these little cellophane balls, we call them her "crinkles", if you scrunch them up in your hand she will come running to play. When they get stuck under the couch she cries until I get a ruler to knock them out so she can play.

"Where's your crinkle Mei Mei?"

 

[LDA 6502]

I had a cat that liked to play fetch with a soft toy ball with a jingle bell inside... in the middle of the night.

 

[rando1234]

When cats play fetch with a person, I imagine the cat is thinking “I finally trained this human to play fetch.”

Speaking anecdotally, probably. We had a cat who would drop the toy (making a loud enough sound) and if nobody paid attention he would meow. At some point he would tire out (get bored) and basically look at the toy to suggest "you get it"

 

[Sparker242]

This has triggered happy and sad memories.
My old cat Hobbes loved to play fetch with a ball of paper. No training. He just did it one day.
He's been gone for 10 years now. Still miss my furry shadow.

 

[malor]

I've known lots of cats over the years, many of which were exceedingly friendly and gentle, but I've never played fetch with one. I think I might pencil that onto the bucket list as a bonus objective.

 

[Mr. Kite]

I had a fetcher. We also played volleyball with a balloon. He would bat it back for a while until he got so excited the claws slipped out. With predictable consequences for the balloon. But the next time there was a balloon in the house, he’d come running.

 

[Kesh]

Our calico will bring things for us to throw. Sometimes she will enthusiastically play fetch, bringing it back multiple times so we can throw it again. Other times, it's a ploy to make us come out of whatever room we're in so she can get something else (food, petting, etc.).

 

[Timmy O'Toole82]

I've had 2 kittens that played fetch. Both of them grew out of it, but it definitely made WFH fun in their kitten days!

 

[Haas Bioroid]

Cat of some friends was a fetch player, but he brought back the toy just out of reach so you have to move too.

 

[RicDavis]

Neither of my cats play fetch, even though they love to chase any toys I throw around the house for them. Is there a good way to train them?

Train a cat. We've found the optimist on this site.

 

[IncorrigibleTroll]

In short, "The agency of fetching lies predominantly with the cat, who is largely in control of a fetching session with their owner and determines how exactly they wish to participate in the fetching session," the authors concluded. "Owners who are receptive to their cat's initiation attempts may have stronger bonds with their cats."

My 2yo male loves fetch, and half an hour of fetch guarantees me hours of contented, purring lapcat.

His preferred fetch toy is a battered old silicone oven mitt that we've taken to calling Romney.

 

[DStaal]

As always, and I think this study actually proved: Cats don't play fetch. They play throw.

They will bring you an item so you can throw it and they'll chase it. It's not about bringing it to you.

 

[lewax00]

My parents had a cat that would play fetch, but only with hair ties.

My cats just like to chase whatever is thrown, but as soon as it stops moving they lose interest.

 

[theSeb]

My British short hair girl loves to play chase, but the fetching part is lacking. She will, however, push a ping pong ball towards you when she wants to play. If you kick it back she loves to play goalie and "kick" it back towards you to continue the game.

 

[Person_Man]

My late cat Rerun would play fetch with me. I was sooo disappointed with him over that. He thought he was a dog.

 

[MattGertz]

I've had 30+ cats (including barn cats) over nearly six decades, but only one fetcher among them -- but boy did that cat like to fetch! His other favorite trick was to hide at the top of the stairs, catch a ball tossed up to him from the bottom (one of those rubber many-pointed balls), and then he'd drop it and watch it bounce back down to us to have the whole operation repeated over and over (and over, and over...) again.

 

[Morac]

I used to have a cat that would play fetch with himself. He would take a ball to the top of the stairs and hit it down them and chase after the ball. Rinse and repeat.

I’ve had 3 other cats since that one and none of them played fetch. One of my two current cats is a couch potato and the other runs around like crazy (no fetching though). Each cat has its own routine.

 

[Trogmor]

I had a cat that loved playing fetch with the jingle bell balls. In fact, I got tired of playing fetch, because she would try and wake me at 3 am to play fetch. Voids sometimes can be pretty evil. Miss her dearly though.

 

[omf]

I took care of a cat for a short while that loved chasing the "feather on the end of a string" toy. I'd get tired of playing before she would and would tuck the toy away on a high shelf where I assumed she could neither see it nor reach it. Well, she would climb up shelves to find it, pull it down, and set it at my feet to continue the game. That cleared up any questions I ever had over whether she knew I was controlling the toy or whether it was somehow "alive".

 

[eatmorefish]

2/5 cats I've lived with over my life have played fetch. Every dog I've ever known has played fetch.

 

[foamfinger]

We've had two cats now that would play fetch when they were younger, but one grew out of it after about a year and a half. Our current young cat is just over a year and she'll bring up a toy for me to throw for her, but while she used to bring it back right away, she'll just chase it and then lose interest.

Cats are weird.

I have two cats as well and one very rarely does it. The other one will do it more frequently as long as I remember to move some of my furniture and retrieve lost toys. He'll run after them so hard that I can hear him panting.

 

[Amateur Nerd]

Train a cat. We've found the optimist on this site.

Cats can be trained... to do whatever they want.

 

[Coppercloud]

I would imagine many cats have a much smaller tendency to knock things off tables and children over while playing catch indoors than my 55lb dog does. Though, I could be wrong.

 

[meisanerd]

I've tried to train mine to fetch, but he just won't do it. If you throw something, he will chase it, but then just look at it like "why isn't it still moving". He was a stray that I adopted from the pound, and I suspect he has too much hunter instinct in him so won't go after things that aren't moving (as prey in the wild that doesn't run away is likely diseased or dead). He does go crazy though when you play with him more interactively, like a mouse on a string that tries to run and avoid (he doesn't chase things that just run in straight lines for long distances either, you have to make it attempt to actually get away from him and hide). If he gets bored enough by himself though, he will swat things around for exercise. There's been a good number of days I'm sitting in my office working and you just hear a "swoosh" of a plastic pop bottle cap go flying by the door, followed seconds later by my cat in hot pursuit.

To anyone that says cats can't be trained, you would be wrong. They just require a lot more work to do so. Mine took 6-8 months to get him to shake a paw, he kept just looking at me with a "whats in it for me" look. You have to be fairly patient to train them.

Mine currently knows high five, shake, roll over, play dead, stand, pray, stay, and he is toilet trained so I don't have to deal with litter. We are currently working on training him to wave goodbye to people.

 

[Poum]

A cat I've recently adopted a few months ago. Can be really annoying. The poor girl is handicapped. Dumb hip and deaf as all hell. Which the deaf thing probably makes her louder, which she can't hear her self, so it sounds like a WWII air raid siren when she wants breakfast.

 

[deadman12-4]

Anyone who has had young cats might notice that they wll play fetch at first. Then they learn that the human is anxious for them to react and still grabs the toy for them.
So we teach them they dont need to fetch.

 

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I have a friend whose cat loves to play fetch.

In fact, she has even figured out how to force him to play fetch in his sleep.

She places her toy in his hand, then gently pats it, until he irritably throws it away.

I'm pretty sure he has some video of her playing fetch (but probably not of her hacking his sleep).

 

[davebarnes]

"authors created an online questionnaire with 23 questions"
How did they get cats to answer an online questionnaire?

 

[Thom Kidd]

Our youngest is an orange tabby named Jack. We got him when he was just about eight weeks old, and he plays fetch. We discovered this one day when I went to toss a cough drop wrapper into a trashcan across the room. It missed but Jack took off after it, batted it around a bit, and then picked it up in his tiny kitten jaws and trotted it back to me and dropped it at my feet. Then he patted it twice, as if to say "Here ya go, Pop! You dropped this" and then sat there waiting.

I tossed it again, he got it again and brought it right back. This continued over a dozen times. Hell, it even spawned a verbal command that he follows to this day: "Jack-Jack, bring it back."

And he still does. Neither of the other two cats could be arsed to even try, but Jack is my little orange retriever.

 

[Keith Tanner]

We have a fetcher, although more recently he's moved into a goalie mode. He'll hide just below the top step (ears sticking out) and try to catch/stop little plastic springs that we toss down the hall and try to get them down the stairs. After a particularly good stop, he'll bring the captured spring back and accept congratulations on his performance.

 

[crmarvin42]

Wife had a cat that played fetch with pens. She's a teacher, and got the cat during her first year teaching. Not sure how it started, but basically whenever she was grading papers, there was a good chance of a spontaneous game of fetch breaking out with her grading pen. Cat did it for years. Sadly, the cat is no longer with us (arthritis required euthanasia ~8 years back now).

 

[Dr Gitlin]

None of our lifers have played fetch but a foster kitten did. She adored those little springs you find in pet stores and could be quite insistent.

edit: fuck you, autocorrect.

 

[EBone]

I've had six cats so far during my life (usually in pairs) and about half of them liked to play fetch. Favorite item to fetch has always been tiny cat toys that have a hard plastic body with a knitted cover and a rattle inside. I could get them to come from anywhere they were in the house by shaking the toy, and their kitty ears would always hear it. Fetch time would last from 5-15 minutes typically.

 

[Dan in NY]

I had one that would play fetch with those aluminum bottle caps. He would go get the bottle cap, bring it to his water bowl, watch it float around. Then he'd knock it out of the water bowl, lick the water out of it and bring it back to me for another round. The only cat I've had that did that and crawled under the covers to sleep with us.

 

[Penforhire]

Our current shorthair used to love fetching my wife's small elastic hair bands. He'd bring them back for a true fetch game. Never interested in anything else. Just those elastic bands. He's an old man now, way more meow than fetch.

 

[WhyNotZoidberg]

I had a cat that liked to play fetch with a soft toy ball with a jingle bell inside... in the middle of the night.

Ours would decide to play with our sons toy cars on his floor in the middle of the night. Many nights we were woken up to him yelling "NO! Bad Kitty!"

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