I have an adolescent Norwegian Forest Cat (Birgitta Deilig) who has
several odd--and mostly amusing--behaviors. One thing she does that
I've never seen before (and I've had a lot of cats) is that she eats
with her feet.

I used to give her moist food much of the time, but I had to stop. She
would scoop up a bit of food in her paw and then eat it off of her
foot. In itself, this was just cute and funny. Unfortunately, rather
than licking her foot completely clean, she would nibble a bit and
then shake her foot to get the remainder off. This caused cat food to
fly all over everywhere. It stuck to the walls, cabinet fronts,
refrigerator door, etc. and dried. I got so tired of cleaning up after
her that I switched to dry food.

She will try to pick up the pieces of dry food with her foot, too, but
she only succeeds on occasion. She usually just ends up getting it out
of the bowl and onto the floor, where she'll pick it up with her
mouth. This still causes considerable mess (lots of teensy bits of dry
cat food on the floor), but it's much easier to clean up!

I'm not sure if this behavior is an indication of intelligence (most
creatures who manipulate things with their feet/paws are very smart)
or just weirdness. Anyway, she makes me laugh and I adore her.

Peggy L.

A house with a cat needs no art. -- Japanese saying