Let me preface by saying our floors are very clean and we aren’t concerned about that. Just perplexed.

We used a pretty generic food bowl for our ten-month-old kitty until a couple months ago, when we noticed she would sometimes swipe a good amount of her dry food straight onto the floor. She would eat from her bowl and the floor indiscriminately.

After we moved to a much nicer apartment, we bought her a flatter bowl, thinking it might be an issue of whisker fatigue. We were wrong. In fact, nowadays, without fail, she will take a few bites of food, swipe half of it onto the ground, and eat from the bowl and the ground without thought. It is a peculiar thing. We think maybe she was meant to be a cow.

Anyone else experience this? Any idea why?

(Also, anyone else’s kitty’s tail puff up when they eat? We got her at 12 weeks and used to pet her back and belly when she ate to make her feel more safe and comfortable. She still demands pets when she eats, and sometimes will pretend to eat—even with just a single piece of dry food or none in her bowl—just to get pets.)