Ritual And Cats

This is not about bizarre Satanist rituals of animal sacrifice, but it is about something just as curious: rituals performed by animals.

The cat I'm sitting has an odd habit: prior to drinking, he moves his dish across the floor. The water splashes a little, and then he drinks. I've talked with other cat owners, and this is common.

What the heck is up with that? The cat's owner has a drinking fountain (but not enough time to bring it over with the cat on his rush to the airport), which usually keeps the water moving. The owner (and the above website) claims that cats like moving water. In nature, he says, moving water is in a river, which is healthy to drink, while stagnant water is often unhealthy. The cat is led by evolutionary self-preservation to prefer moving water.

Fine, so buy a fountain, the water moves and the cat is happy to find moving water. But why the high holy heck would a cat move the water himself before drinking it? It doesn't improve his health at all, whether he does this in my kitchen or in the Serengeti. If the point of drinking moving water is to select healthy water, it doesn't make the water in his dish any healthier to shove his bowl across my floor.

About the only reasonable, if anthropomorphic, argument I can think of is that the cat is engaging in a pre-meal ritual. In this ritual, Max has to make the water physicallly ripple prior to drinking it. He has no idea why this is, but it must be done to sate his evolutionarily self-preservational psyche.

Alternatively, cats have bad eyesight, can't see the clear liquid in the bowl, and so splashes it about to see if it's there. However, he could just stick his face in, and find out THAT way, which seems a simpler, and so more likely approach.

By moving its own water prior to drinking it might seem like the cat is engaging in a pre-drinking ritual -- a useless yet meaningful activity.

I'm just concerned that I'm going to come home one night, and find Max set up burning candles on a sheet-covered altar, draped in a gold embroidered robe and red beanie, incense drifting, arms raised heavens-ward before scarfing his cat chow.

So, now I'm curious to see if Paul Krugman writes about *this* this week.