# Yowling and clothes dragging



## evil genius (May 26, 2010)

I have an almost completely black female cat (I assume she is roughly some sort of domestic short hair), probably about 7 years old. Periodically she will begin yowling and simultaneously dragging clothes (almost always my underwear and sometimes shorts [I have never seen her grab a shirt]) to either the carpeted dining room or the tile-floor kitchen. From this point she will amass a pile of clothes (and continue to yowl). She does it whether I am home or not. When I do hear it (it sounds so pitiful), I immediately run over to give her some attention. Any idea what this is?


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## sephi (May 9, 2010)

My 14 year old black domestic cat used to do that, he passed away 4 months ago , rip.
Sometimes I left shirts on top of the bed and when I came home from work, I see it on the floor in living room!! I saw him few time doing that, he hold on to the shirt in his mouth and dragging it across slowley and purring. It was so funny! I guess it is the smell of you and affictioon.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

Dude.

Time to do laundry! 8O


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

I think this could be a manifestation of several possible instinctive behaviors;

1. Hunting instinct to drag their 'prey' to a safe or familiar spot. 
2. Nesting (mating?) behavior.
3. Calling kittens to come eat.

Our cat Squirrely-Jo will play with toys but when she picks up a plastic gallon-milk-jug ring ... she will carry it around and *cry*. S-Jo sounds pitiful, very mournful and like her whole world has ended. BUT, if I poke my head around the doorway and/or call to her, she'll drop the toy and come running to me with a 'happy' meow and her tail in the air for attention. 

A cat playing w/ milk ring:


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## Alpaca (Dec 21, 2009)

Hey now that you mention it, Miu sometimes displays an attraction to my clothes if I leave them lying around in a pile. She doesn't yowl, but just sits there on them and rubs her face in them (probably marking them with her scent...mine!). Or she just sits there hugging them to her. One time, she seemed quite attracted to a pile and literally tried to go into the clothes.


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Our kitties sometimes show a fascination with the sweaty armpits of my husband's work-tees. I don't know if they just like the odor or think they are masking their scent with something stronger ... they're crazy kittehs!


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## aprilmay (Dec 29, 2009)

Bella would carry washclothes through the house all the time. I would find them in some strangs spots. She would just meow though, no yowling.

Love how Mika will carry his toys all over the house. He's my first cat who's ever done that.


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## evil genius (May 26, 2010)

Perhaps I'm being overly anthropomorphic when I interpret Sophia's yowl's, but translated into man-speak I get something along the lines of "where are you?". It's the inflection in her tone, it sounds inquisitive and yet quite sad. I thought she might be using the clothes to feel companionship when I am not around. And I could use this as a viable conjecture, yet sometimes she will grab the clothes when I am in the same room. Thus I'm left without a decent explanation. 

Heidi, I have thought about hunting instinct but the fact that it's clothes (my clothes only [she doesn't do this to my other roommates or with toys]) makes me think otherwise (although once I did cook a 10oz steak and set it down in the living room. When I grabbed the remote I looked back and Sophia was trotting off with my 10oz steak in her mouth [it was funny because it was the size of her head]). Mating behavior on the otherhand may be a possibility. We have no kittens (and she is kind of cat-anti-social) so I wouldn't expect she is calling others for dinner time (which is 24-7 in my house).

marie73, what is really funny is that I can do the laundry and put the clean clothes in a pile and she will still pick out only underwear and shorts for this ritual. Perhaps I should add more suds. Yet a cat's nose is quite powerful and perhaps she can smell some trace amount of scent.

One more strange ritual is plastic wrap. If she can get her paws on it, it goes straight to the water bowl. What is it about plastic wrap that would make her put it in the water bowl?


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## CataholicsAnonymous (Dec 4, 2006)

My brother-in-law used to have a cat with a stong penchant for clean underwear (anybody's), be they briefs, panties, bras, or boxers. She would actually open the underwear drawers to drag them out. One night, he fell asleep on the living room floor while watching TV. He awoke, having a difficult time breathing, and found his face was covered with literally dozens of undies. :roll:


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## CataholicsAnonymous (Dec 4, 2006)

Oh, P.S., I forgot to ask. I've assumed Sophia is spayed; if not, what she is doing is classic false pregnancy behavior.


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

evil genius said:


> ...I'm left without a decent explanation.


Well, the funny thing about instinctual behavior is we don't see it or understand the pull it has for our pets, but *they* certainly feel its' demands. They probably don't understand *why* they feel compelled to behave this way, only that their body is demanding they do something ... and sometimes that 'something' can be pretty odd, to our way of thinking, because we see only the physical manifestation of that instinctual drive.

I have to agree with you about the mournful/lonely crying. When my geriatric cat reached about age 19 (_she lived to be 21_) I think she began to experience kitty-dementia. She would step outside my bedroom doorway, I mean she was _in full view of the door to my bedroom where she just left me_ and would make that mournful cry. If I poked my head around the doorway and/or spoke to her, her response in both demeanor and sound of her cries would instantly change. She'd go from ears half-mast, tail low, slight crouch and long-low-yowls to ears/tail up, standing up tall and a short happy meow as if to say; "Oh, _there_ you are!" when she realized she *wasn't* alone, after all.


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