Why Do Some Cats Do The ‘Begging Paws’/’Praying’ Motion?

The begging/praying motion is one of the most unusual feline behaviors, but what does it mean, and why do some cats do it?

Readers of this blog know I love my cat dearly, but he’s also very weird.

Perhaps his strangest, most mysterious behavior is what I call his “praying” gesture: Buddy sits up on his hind legs, puts his front paws together and raises them up and down as if in fervent  prayer.

The behavior is extremely rare. Out of many millions of cat videos hosted on the internet, only a handful show cats engaging in it.

Here’s Buddy demonstrating his “prayer” form, set to De La Soul’s 1989 track, “Buddy”:

It’s seemingly random and impossible to predict, which is why it’s been so difficult for me to get a decent clip of Bud doing it. The above video is the third time I’ve managed to capture it, and only the second time I’ve been able to get a clear shot following an earlier capture:

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Some cats do it much more frequently, like the ginger tabby below whose humans have decided it’s an expression of gratitude toward them for giving him a forever home:

I’m confident in saying that, for my cat at least, it’s not an expression of gratitude or a form of begging. First, Bud doesn’t do gratitude, and he doesn’t beg so much as he demands. If he feels I’m not responding quickly enough to one of his directives, he goes right to screeching at me: “Snack now, human!” and so on.

Likewise in the video above, Charlie’s humans say the orange tabby does it “randomly.” They’ve even caught him making the motion on camera when no one else was around, which tracks with my own observations of my cat.

So why do cats do it?

“I’ve seen the ‘begging paws’ online and I wish I had a nice, clear explanation for you,” cat behaviorist Mikel Delgado told us.

Some cats, she noted, learn quickly that it elicits a response from their humans.

“My best guess at why cats continue to do this behavior is that it gets them attention,” Delgado said. “That however, does not explain why they do it in the first place.”

Nancy Meyer, a feline behavior consultant who volunteers for Tabby’s Place in New Jersey, said she believes cats in some of the videos are indeed signaling to their humans that they want something. For example, one clip shows a cat “begging” in front of a refrigerator — which his humans say he often does — while another shows a cat facing its reflection in a mirror while pressing its paws together and moving them up and down.

Some of those cats would be well aware that their behavior is a good way to get their humans’ attention, which could indeed lead to them getting what they want.

“It’s like a meow or gaze alteration; it’s a way of communicating that a cat wants to get something that’s currently out of reach,” Meyer told PITB. “The owners reward the cat for this behavior so the behavior perpetuates.”

In my own anecdotal experience I have witnessed Buddy engage in the behavior when he doesn’t realize he’s being observed, and he’s just as likely to break out in “prayer” while facing away from me. I suspect that because he does it so infrequently, he doesn’t realize it results in attention.

It’s unlikely we’ll get definitive answers unless the behavior becomes the focus of research, but that seems unlikely because of its rarity and its unpredictable nature.

Most of the time it appears benign, but Delgado says caretakers should pay close attention if their cats are engaging in it constantly.

“My only concern is that in some of these cats, the behavior appears almost compulsive – like they can’t/won’t stop,” she told PITB. “I also would recommend chatting with a veterinarian to see if they have any thoughts about whether this might indicate any physiological issue.”

Otherwise it appears benign, so if your kitty occasionally breaks out in “prayer,” enjoy the quirk — and good luck trying to get that elusive footage!

18 thoughts on “Why Do Some Cats Do The ‘Begging Paws’/’Praying’ Motion?”

  1. Some cats have a natural inclination towards certain behaviors. Ramses, for instance, lies down, rolls over, and gives me a high-five on command. I’m still working with Brandon to determine what his “specialty” is. So far, he is good at sitting up for a treat.

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    1. I was able to teach Bud to come when called, sit and high five in about two weeks, with one or two short training sessions (10 to 15 minutes) a day. It was simple positive reinforcement training with treats and praise. I think more people would do it if they realized how easy it is.

      The praying thing isn’t taught though. He just does it at random times. It’ll last five or six seconds, then he might do it again shortly after or I won’t see him do it for weeks. Between the random nature and the short duration, it’s very difficult to capture it on video.

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      2. If you pair it with encouragement and a word or gesture, you could get him to do it on command. Once he knows that sitting up and high fiving leads to a treat and reward, he’ll do it eagerly.

        If you train him incrementally over two weeks, you could definitely do it.

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      4. It’s so random though, I’d have to walk around with treats in my hand to reward him immediately when he does it. With the high five, it’s incremental: It starts with touching his paw and rewarding him for letting me do that, then on to gently holding his paw, then raising it, then raising it higher, etc. Rewards and encouragement at each step until he anticipates what I’m asking and raises his paw and we high five or fist bump.

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  3. That’s so cute of Buddy! The pics of him in the last post were too! That motion is interesting indeed. I’ve only ever seen it in a few videos, never in any of the cats we’ve lived with. Most paw actions though, do seem to have a purpose. Like drawing something closer to inspect it; obtaining prey, obtaining a toy to play with, paw tapping a person or another cat in affection, smacking or scratching someone. In sleep, they may roll on their backs and extend paws into the air – is that to sense any approach perhaps? I can’t imagine what the “praying” motion is for … but some sort of study would be interesting!

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    1. I think it may be an involuntary reaction simular to the way cats chatter at birds, but triggered by something outside human sensory perception. For example, sounds at frequencies cats can hear, but we cannot.

      That’s just a guess, but it would make sense given the way cats seem to stare at things that aren’t there and react to things we don’t see or hear. Of course some people immediately leap to the conclusion that it must be a ghost or something else supernatural, but we know perfectly well that feline sensory perception is magnitudes greater than our own when it comes to sound, scent, etc.

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      1. That certainly does make sense! LOL I’ve had to resist the urge to react to all those online pictures of cats sensing ghosts and “presences” with “It’s a mouse or bug in the wall or a critter outside”. Can’t risk online arguments.

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      2. Yeah people get very touchy when they’ve decided something supernatural is happening. Which is unfair to cats because it really is incredible how much they can hear that we can’t, not to mention the fact that they can smell an entire world of things we can’t, their whiskers can literally register micro-changes in air density and they can see in conditions that appear pitch black to us.

        It’s a wonder they get startled sometimes, but I chalk it up to the fact that they are curious little guys and can get easily distracted.

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      3. All true for sure. I observed the whisker thing in action when we were in an EF4 tornado in my Mom’s house. We were told by TV weather persons about 15 to 20 mins before the hit that we were in the path. We scrambled to get everyone into the bathroom, but Mom’s cats were already running around like crazy and we couldn’t catch them. This was before we could hear the roar. So here’s where some folks would say they are psychic. No, tornados sling the air around in ways that cause drastic pressure changes. They felt that with their whiskers, or heard the roar before we did, or both. All cats hid under furniture and survived. We humans survived too.

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  6. Thanks for mentioning Tabby’s Place in New Jersey! Pandora and I live nearby and the place is wonderful. So many cats! Some adoptable and some who are not, but who get to live out their lives there in a caring environment.

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    1. The Tabby’s Place people do an awesome job. We’ve run several stories about them in the past, including the saga of Frankie Sad Eyes, a cat who was surrendered at 11 years old (but had a happy ending!), several other cats in their care, and their new wing for FIV cats.

      You can find those stories in our archive by searching “Tabby’s Place” in the search bar on the bottom of the front page and every article page. (The search bar is just above the bit that says “Welcome to Buddy’s Blog!” with the photo of Bud yawning.)

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