Cat trance cool down

November 3, 2014 3:07 AM

How can I give my adult cat some payoff when he suckles fabric but never finds milk?

Almost a month ago I adopted an adult cat from the humane society. I've named him Korben. He's wonderful & it's been fun getting to know him as he relaxes more each day and exhibits new behaviors.

Something he started doing a few days ago was kneading and purring on some remnants of soft minky fabric (the kind with little bumps) and suckling it for minutes at a time. This behavior is adorable and he's definitely not chewing and swallowing any of it, and he only does it to this one kind of fabric.

When he does this he sometimes gets increasingly frantic with his nosing and burrowing until he snaps out of it and suddenly needs to be away in the corner doing very adult cat things like licking his leg gracefully or patrolling the house. Other times it seems to soothe him completely and he gradually comes out of it and then curls up for a long nap.

From previous cats I know that it's good to be able to complete instinctual behaviors, like leading a laser pointer to a physical object the cat can attack and "kill", or providing a really high-sided but open top litter box so they can kick the litter around a lot. I've known plenty of cats who suckle for self-soothing purposes, but I've never had one myself.

Since I can't provide cat milk and Korben is over four years old anyway, is there some kind of "congrats you got it!" way of following through that suckling impulse so he can finish the behavior smoothly most of the time? Would a chewy treat work, or just moistening the fabric a little, or would this be a good time to brush him? He doesn't seem to want to be pet afterwards, unlike basically every other second of his life, because he snaps him out of his mellow mindspace and he'll run off.

I am a little bit worried about his behavior extending to other fabrics and chewing, biting, and clawing them, and subsequently swallowing them. Not super concerned, but I'd like him to have no reason to get more intense about it. He's a very mellow, gentle cat who seems quite smart so far, and has had a clean bill of health both from my vet and the humane society. He used to live with another cat before he was surrendered. He shows no inclination to knead and suckle on me or any other person, dislikes being held and hates being on laps. He's a beside-you cat who demands attention through headbumps and innate cuteness, and is not food motivated whatsoever.

I suppose I have bad-cat trauma from my dead previous cat who had clearly been abused and was a litany of nightmares and stress for the whole rest of her life with me. I keep expecting Korben to also be a problem child but he's super polite and quite low maintenance. I'm absolutely fine with his suckling behavior, but I want to be able to keep his tiny cat brain happy and feeling satisfied about it. I have no idea about his life as a kitten but he's not got any of the other classic indicators of being weaned too soon, and I know he liked the other cats in the shelter and is plenty socialized.

If you've got any ideas or tips I'll definitely give them a try.

posted by Mizu to Pets & Animals (12 answers total)

Aww! What a sweetie!

Our old cat of 8 years did this up until the day we had to put him down ( terminal cancer). He usually did this then eventually flopped down and went to sleep in a mountain of couch pillows. So maybe we are bad cat parents because we would just let him do his thing.

Where your cat isn't flopping over, you could try to put a small saucer of warm milk for him near his food dish?
posted by floweredfish at 3:21 AM on November 3, 2014

I don't see how providing a reward for suckling is going to discourage the behavior. It wouldn't surprise me if blanket sucking eventually escalates to other fabrics as his trust level increases. But I also don't think that fabric suckling typically escalates into chewing up/tearing up fabric (just like kittens' suckling instinct doesn't escalate into trying to eat the mama cat!). It's all adorbz until you find yourself crawling into a bed with wet spots, or they knead on you with their pointy feet bits, or they start suckling on your favorite sweaters while you're wearing them.
posted by drlith at 3:24 AM on November 3, 2014

My cat has been suckling on a couple of specific items for three years now, and it hasn't escalated in any way.
posted by lollusc at 4:06 AM on November 3, 2014

My cat loves a pinch of american cheese. Maybe you could see if Korben likes that? It would give him some kind of milk-ish reward. Thing is, rewarding him will just make him continue the habit.

My big guy also does a lot of kneading (though no suckling), usually on people. He's very happy to simply get head and chin rubs when he does it.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:17 AM on November 3, 2014

I think kneading & suckling can be self-soothing behavior without any addition of a treat payoff. Maybe get Korben a bigger/sturdier blanket to use so he can completely bliss out? Does he have the 'wool gene'? I've had several cats who are super attracted to wool, something to do with the lanolin I think. I got a giant sheepskin throw from Costco one year which my first two cats mostly ignored, but which my current cat, Snow, adores. She kneads it, licks it, and naps on it. If you have a local farmer's market, you could find a small sheepskin that isn't too expensive to see how he reacts to it.
posted by oh yeah! at 4:46 AM on November 3, 2014

I wouldn't advise giving him regular milk, as it can sometimes give cats diarrhoea. Instead you could give him some special cat milk (which does not, despite its name, come from cats.)
posted by essexjan at 5:16 AM on November 3, 2014

I have heard that suckling behaviour in adult cats often occurs when the cat in question was separated from its mother too early. This is certainly the case with our Alfie, who we adopted as an 8-week-old. He took to suckling a black sarong when he was a kitten and has never really diversified.
posted by Alice Russel-Wallace at 6:32 AM on November 3, 2014

Our cat does this with a specific towel and no other fabric, not even other towels. He's been doing it for about two years. He's also a well socialized cat and shows no other weaned-too-early behaviors.

He only does this when the towel is slightly damp, though, and does not act weird afterwards - so maybe wetting the fabric a little is worth a try, see if he reacts any differently?
posted by troika at 7:08 AM on November 3, 2014

I can't tell if this is exactly the same behavior, but it seems worth mentioning that my cat (also a male rescued stray, in case it's relevant) does something similar, and while I'd at first thought it was suckling behavior, too, it turns out it's decisively sexual, the biting at the blanket presumably simulating holding onto the scruff of another cat's neck. I'm not sure if that affects how you want to respond, but your description of it sometimes getting increasingly frantic followed eventually by leg-licking is totally consistent with what my cat does (less often after being neutered, incidentally).
posted by nobody at 8:02 AM on November 3, 2014

I have no experience with kneading leading to a frantic state (I also have female cats, for what that's worth) - in my experience this is always a self-soothing sort of thing, that leads to calmness and often sleep. I've had maybe eight cats who have done this to some extent.

My current cats are the kneadingest when they're in my lap. What happens if you relocate your cat's fabric of choice to your lap (or right next to you, if he's not much of a literal lap cat) when you see him getting interested in it? I wonder if you guys might get some really sweet extra snuggle time out of this.

Oh, and in my experience this behavior doesn't cause any damage except occasionally from claws. If he has sharp ones and transfers this behavior to a different fabric which you notice getting pinpricks or pulled threads, a trim would take care of it.
posted by jessicapierce at 8:45 AM on November 3, 2014

I have an old round brush with soft bristles that I hold while my cat rubs his face on it. It was originally a way to calm him down from being overstimulated when I came home every night, and he was getting attention (he could get nippy). I also ended up using that brush so he's rubbing his face on it while I'm brushing the rest of him. It definitely puts him into a happy little trance.
posted by gladly at 9:37 AM on November 3, 2014

I had a cat from 5 weeks old until he passed at 20 years & he would suck on just one sheepskin rug we had pretty much from the first week we got him. The rug, which got increasingly threadbare as the years went on ended up in his cat bed. It was a self soothing activity, it never escalated or spread to any other rug/material he came across in his long life. The vet assured us it was harmless & most likely because his mother died when he was 4 weeks old & he was weaned early.

We never did anything about it but move the rug because a white kitten/cat on a white rug was hard to see.
posted by wwax at 12:09 PM on November 3, 2014