Meowing

[Laura]

Bouja is a very quiet cat. She chirps and purrs mainly. But when she has a ball in her mouth (not an often occurrence) she meows very loudly and very clearly from behind the ball. When I come to investigate as she's always in another room when she does this, she drops the ball and looks at me expectantly. It's not a bad behavior, but I'm curious about why she does this. Any ideas?

[thelmalu99]

Aww.. that's so cute!
I wonder if she's calling you to play?

[margaret]

That is very cute! Yes, I would agree with Thelmalu that your kitty is calling you to play with her. Maybe the *meow* comes out more easily for her when the ball stretches her mouth open wider!!

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]Margaret

[Gio]

One of my cats Maya does the same but with metal bottletops. She has them all in a big empty flower pot, and when she wants to play she takes them out one by one and goes around the house meowing like mad. It actually sounds like someone is torturing her, I would not be surprised if one day the neighbours call the animal welfare unit! Maya wants someone to play with her and she will go on meowing until someone takes pity on her and throws the bottletop. THen she will run after it, but will take it back only if she feels like it. We find those things everywhere: under the furniture, in the beds, in shoes in the her and in the other cats' foodbowls and litter. Not very pleasant if you walk on them barefooted in the middle of the night!

[Laura]

That's it! Bouja sounds like someone is torturing her. When she first did it, I was frantic! I thought something happened to her!

[Troy]

Perhaps these unusual meows are a sign of boredom? When my cats get bored, usually after bad weather has kept them indoors, they start to meow a low guttural sound - in fact, more of a howl than meow...if that makes sense? Anyway I have found that giving him/them some "intense" attention, wearing them out with sting-chase or paper-chase games for a while calms them down.

[Laura]

I don't think it's boredom, but I've increased string time just in case! As a follow-up, Bouja actually MEOWED at me yesterday! Like I said in my first post, she just never meows, so this is an event. I thought something might be wrong, but she was fine last night, so all must be well. She must be picking up habits from her sister!