Can Cats Tell Time?

As I said before, I grew up with cats but I guess I wasn’t paying that much attention to behavior and other things. Now that I have the primary responsibility for a cat, I just keep noticing things. Might be true of all cats, I just don’t know.

Anyway, when Tigger first showed up and we realized (a) he wasn’t going anywhere and (b) he was probably hungry, we started leaving food out for him. Mostly dry food but I’d give him a can in the morning just because he looked hungry and he seemed to enjoy it.

Then you go to the vet and they recommend against soft food for cats so, for several months, we stuck with hard food. A specific kind of hard food that is supposed to help with dental issues that cats now seem to be prone to.

But part of the fun of having an animal living with you is spoiling them. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided why not give him a small can once a week just to change up his diet a little bit and maybe give him something special. There was some confusion the first time because he didn’t get a can the day after and I’m sure he was thinking that the can was going to be part of the daily routine. But he seemed to adapt just fine to dry food on most days.

This morning, I actually forgot it was Saturday so I put some dry food in his dish. He ate a bit and then stopped, looked at me, and started to make a fuss. He’s not the most vocal cat but he can be when he really wants something. At first, I was confused because there was food in the dish so what was he complaining about?

Then it hit me that it was Saturday morning and that routine now includes one small can of food in the morning. So I replaced the dry with the wet and he tore into it.

Did he know it was Saturday? Well maybe not that is was Saturday but that it had been a week since the last can and that we had established a pattern of a can once a week so now he’s expecting the canned food?

I know that cats and dogs can easily get used to our established patterns so they can recognize when certain things are likely to happen. The dogs always “knew” it was Saturday and walk day but that’s because (a) I got up later and (b) I didn’t leave the house. So they could tell the difference based on what I was doing.

But there’s no real pattern change now so I don’t know if there are any clues that would let him know seven days have passed. It could be he just really wanted the canned food today. I don’t know. But he certainly let me know I was missing something today. We’ll see what happens next Saturday.