It’s that old hunting instinct again which comes out in scavenging the neighbourhood for human items, usually socks and children’s toys but in this instance it is shoes. The fairly familiar examples of domestic cats ‘stealing’ items from homes is an expression of frustrated hunting which has come out not in hunting real creatures but inanimate objects which are carted off back to their ‘den’, the family home.
Perhaps cats brings them back in the same way that many outdoor cats bring prey through the catflap such as mice. Shoes are attractive to a cat because they smell and they are available because they are left outside the back door sometimes.
Cooper, a cat living in Tauranga, New Zealand, reminds me of Imelda Marcos. You might remember her as the slightly deranged wife of President Marcos of the Philippines who coveted shoes. She coveted them so much that when she died she had 1,200 pairs in her wardrobe.
Well, Cooper can’t match that but judging by the picture it looks like he has ‘stolen’ something in the order of 30 pairs of all kinds. He has an addictive desire to nick them from the front or back doors of neighbour’s properties.
His despairing human guardian posted to Facebook, the question:
“Have your shoes gone missing from your door?”
One neighbour has been asked four times to come around to reclaim their shoes. I guess there is an upside to this: you get to meet your neighbours and most of them will see the amusing side to it.
A BIT MORE ON CATS STEALING STUFF…
