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Guinness does a lot of kneading, which I know is completely normal - but he sucks his blanket while kneading. My cat likes to nurse his blankie. Is this normal? I have never seen this behavior before and I've had many cats in my lifetime.
I think it's normal for cats to do that if they were taken away from their mother at a young age. The suckling that is (a lot of cats knead even if they stay with their mother for months, lol). They also knead to get milk out of their mother while nursing, so suckling seems like a logical thing to do as well. It's a comfort thing. Nothing bad. I've seen some other cats do this too at the shelter and a friend's cat does it.
Guinness does a lot of kneading, which I know is completely normal - but he sucks his blanket while kneading. My cat likes to nurse his blankie. Is this normal? I have never seen this behavior before and I've had many cats in my lifetime.
I had a cat a long time ago that did that. The cat was a "rescue" and too young when taken away from it's mother (I think the mother died). I always assumed that he did this to imitate nursing. The worst was when I first got him and he would snuggle next to my head and try to suck my hair. I didn't like that very much.
Hackney did that for awhile when he was a kitten. It took him a year to quit. He had been pulled away from his mother too early. He found it as a comfort.
Cookie sucks her back toes while she's kneading. She curls up in a little ball, stretches out her front paws and kneads while she sucks her back paws. She's 4 now ... I don't know if she'll ever outgrow it.
Checkers just kneads anything that's soft, without the sucking. He's ticked because it's getting warmer and we're putting away the fleece sweatshirts and fluffy blankets.
Cookie sucks her back toes while she's kneading. She curls up in a little ball, stretches out her front paws and kneads while she sucks her back paws. She's 4 now ... I don't know if she'll ever outgrow it.
Checkers just kneads anything that's soft, without the sucking. He's ticked because it's getting warmer and we're putting away the fleece sweatshirts and fluffy blankets.
Aww, poor Checkers!
I had to take pics of G nursing his blanket, of course. I think his little habit is adorable.
Everyone above is right IMO. The combination of sucking and kneading is from too early weening. I've seen it repeatedly. The god news is that it is very very satisfying to the cats and they seem to be calmed by it to a point where I have seem them purring spontaneously from it. My sister's cat would get scared from storm noises and the first thing we would do was to put Pansy on her bnlanket and the sucking and kneading would have her asleep in a few minutes.
I had a cat who did that. The kneading I thought was cute. The sucking I understood. But all the kitty slobber was a bit much. He could just DRENCH you.
It can also be a learned behavior. I first observed it in a kitten that was bottle raised after the mother was killed before the kitten was weaned. The cat has continued this behavior for almost 2 years and does not show any sign of diminishing the activity.
We received another kitten recently, about 12 wks old or so, and this kitten did not show this behavior until after we had him almost a month and has recently begun imitating the older cat.
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Is this normal? I have never seen this behavior before and I've had many cats in my lifetime.
