For the uninitiated, it’s a quirky behavior in which a cat sits upright on its back feet, then places the front paws together and moves them up and down as if fervently at prayer — or begging for something. (Though that’s undoubtedly our anthropomorphic interpretation of a distinctly feline quirk.)
Our post about the begging paws has become one of the most popular stories on this site, with people regularly finding us via search engines as they try to learn more about this strange behavior.
The last time we asked around, several veterinarians and behaviorists were happy to speak to us about the subject, but no one could say for sure what the begging paws motion means.
We’re going to give it another shot and hopefully get some answers by comparing notes with people whose cats engage in the behavior. If your cat does the begging paws/praying gesture, we’d love to hear from you!
Please comment here or email paininthebud at gmail along with:
The name, age and gender of your cat
How frequently your cat does the gesture
Anything patterns or related behavior you’ve noticed: does your cat “pray” at certain times or in response to something she sees? Do you reward the behavior with treats, affection or attention? Has your cat always done it, or did the behavior emerge at a particular time?
Any detail could help uncover what exactly our furry friends are doing.
If you have photos or video of your cat “praying,” we’d love to include those clips in our follow-up story as well.
Hopefully by working together we can understand this quirky behavior and finally solve the mystery of why our cats do it!
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:
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!
Buddy’s a weirdo, so naturally he engages in one of the rarest and most mystifying feline behaviors.
I’ve been working on a story about a very odd, unexplained cat behavior — cats who appear to be “begging” or “praying.”
Aside from a handful of videos of cats engaging in the behavior, which seems to be very rare, there’s nothing on the web that really explains what it is or why cats engage in it.
I’ve reached out to cat behavior experts and veterinarians to get their take, and the story’s coming along, but in the meantime I wanted to share a very short video of Buddy “praying,” which I finally managed to get after many times being too slow on the trigger, not getting my phone out and recording in time to capture it. (I did manage to get some still shots some time ago in error, after I thought I’d pressed the video button. Another fail. 😂)
Unlike the kitties in the videos below, Buddy doesn’t “pray” or “beg” in any predictable way, and there’s nothing to indicate he’s going to do it. But finally, I caught him in time!
Here are some other videos in cats engaging in the behavior:
I’ve got no hard date for the story yet, as I’m trying to get as many perspectives as I can, but I do have my own theories on why cats “pray” and what the motion might signal. The Very. Rev. Buddy and I will keep you posted!
Pain In The Bud 