I had never seen a cat playing the guitar with his mouth before. Plucking the strings with his teeth. I don’t expect you have either. It has a certain musicality about it, which I am sure you appreciate 😉. It seems that the cat’s owner placed his camera inside the guitar, in which case he was expecting something to happen. Although Jake Neumar said: “Why I can’t leave my guitar out anymore,” on his TikTok account @jakeneumar. Clearly his cat has done this before and may be obsessed with those strings (or making music).
And the interesting aspect of the video is the way that his cat feels compelled to bite the guitar strings. Why does he want to do that? Is he trying to eat them? Or does he just want to make music 😎?
I have to confess that my cat does something similar. I have a plastic cat confinement fence around my backyard to keep him in (he got out). And he likes to bite the plastic netting of the fence.
@jakeneumar Why I can’t leave my guitar out anymore #why #cat #funnyamimals #kitten #weird #guitar ♬ original sound – Jake Neumar
Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which stops it working here. I have no control over this.
Some thoughts on why this cat likes to chew guitar strings
It is almost identical to what we see in this video only its plastic fencing and not guitar strings. I don’t think they do it because it is pleasurable in terms of touch. It almost looks painful as they bite hard. I think they do it because the taste is pleasurable. Another factor is that cats do like to put things in their mouths and bite on it. They are like kids in that way.
If I am correct there is something in some guitar strings which tastes nice to some domestic cats. As for domestic cats we know that plastic can taste nice but that is normally plastic made from corn starch and not petroleum. I am unsure why cats like the taste. They can’t taste sweet things.
So, what are guitar strings made of? Some are made of nylon which is a plastic. Some are metal. Could these guitar strings be made from corn starch or part corn starch? I can’t find anything on this but we know that cats like chewing on corn starch plastic. That’s my guess although I might be well off the mark.
Another possibility which I think is wrong but worth mentioning is that this cat has gum disease. You can see the inflamed gums. He might be biting to try and alleviate the discomfort. That’s unlikely but just about possible. Although I would have thought that it would hurt the gums to bite guitar strings if they are inflamed. My best bet is that the strings taste nice.
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A third possibility is that the cat suffers from pica, the eating of non-nutritious substances. Usually, these substances are plastic or wool. Pica can be due to early weaning. It can also be due to stress, dietary deficiency, boredom or a feline version of OCD. It is certainly possible that this cat is stressed or bored and engaging in pica.
Finally, it has been suggested that this cat is teething and biting because of that. But I don’t believe this as she has gum disease. This couldn’t happen to a cat who is 4 months old.
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Thanks John.
I think it’s obvious. Some cats really like music. Of my cats, two in particular would come to me when I played guitar, and both would play with the strings when they had a chance, usually with their teeth, sometimes with their paws. I swear my last cat had a favorite song, one with a lot of high-pitched slides – probably sounded like cat meows to her (Tarrega’s “Marie (Gavotte)”.
Thanks SJ. Cats are good observational learners as you no doubt know.
Our Calico sees my husband play his guitars (all the time) and then we saw her try it. The guitars are all lined up on a big stand/rack with metal strings. She’s young so, she doesn’t have gum disease.
There’s also a lone guitar on a stand in the bedroom and she will come in there in the morning and pluck it with her teeth trying to get my husbands attention. She knows he loves his guitars, so, I think it’s her way of showing an affinity with them to make him happy. He feeds our 2 cats, and they follow him everywhere.
He will play songs on his guitar for a long time and when he stops, our cat uses her voice like a whine to object when he stops.
Most cats 🐈😻will play with anything.