Cats can play fetch like dogs according to scientists in Sussex
Watch cats playing fetch.
Animal behaviour psychologists from the University of Sussex and Northumbria University have found that it’s not just dogs that like a game of fetch, some cats do too.
The study has been published in Scientific Reports, after cat owners took part in a survey about the behaviour of their pets.
The researchers looked at the particular ways that cats play fetch and found that they were more likely to play for longer and more frequently if they initiated the game.
Whilst some cats engaged in a traditional fetch and return form, others would bring the object back only halfway and some would gradually drop the object further and further away from their owner.
Interviews with lead author of the study Jemma Forman and cat owner Sandra Carrillo De Fuente.
The researchers found that for the vast majority (94.4%) fetching appeared to be an instinctive behaviour in their cats, emerging in the absence of explicit training.
Lead author on the study, Jemma Forman, from the University of Sussex School of Psychology, said: "We've started to uncover a really interesting fetching behaviour that is not commonly associated with cats.
"Our findings show that cats dictate this behaviour to directly influence how their human owners respond.
"Cats who initiated their fetching sessions played more enthusiastically with more retrievals and more fetching sessions per month.
The cat sample for this research was made up of 994 mixed-breed and 160 purebred cats.
The purebred most reported to play fetch was Siamese (22.5%).
This study focused on cat owners who had already identified as previously or currently having cats that played fetch.
The psychologists next want to broaden out the research to understand the prevalence of this play behaviour in the wider domestic cat population by including non-fetching cats and to recruit a more representative sample of purebred cats.