Why does my cat paw her food from the bowl to eat?
Ever since she was a kitten, my cat has generally preferred to pull her kibble out of her food bowl a piece at a time and eat them off of the floor. She also has a tendency to drink her water by dipping her paws in and licking the water off.
She displays this behaviour about half the time. As far as I can tell, it's usually when she is more relaxed or lazy, but there's no discernible pattern from which I can draw conclusions.
Occasionally she will lounge with one arm around the kibble bowl, pulling the food out with the other paw, almost as if she's eating a bag of chips.
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A cat I had pawed her food as well. In her case, there were ants who had found traces of food in her dish and she was trying to separate her food from the ants. Once she started doing this, it became a habit that she continued.
Pawing water in a dish may be a reaction to an unfortunate drinking accident in the past (darn that clear water! sneeze, sneeze). Drinking water directly from the faucet may be a preference for cleaner water than she can get in a bowl. Or there may actually be a difference in flavor; my brother used to claim he could taste which faucet in our house water came from, but since I couldn't taste any difference he may have been trying to pull one over on me.
I have a subscription to Catster Magazine, formerly known as Cat Fancy. Had it for years now and have learned a lot from it. One article says that cats do not see water unless it's moving (because it's clear). That may be the reason they prefer to drink from the tap. I have a cat fountain which works for my cat quite well but she still prefers to drink from the tap if possible. I also learned about them not liking to eat from dishes that touch their whiskers. I bought bigger bowls.
I have a cat who does this, and have heard about the behavior in other cats. One researcher (sorry I don't have a reference) believes that some cats don't like their whiskers touching the sides of food or water bowls, so they use their paws. In engineering terms whiskers serve as sensitive proximity sensors, sending a signal to the brain when they contact something.
You can try a bigger bowl or a fountain-style bowl if you don't like puddles of water around the water bowl. Several of my cats enjoy sitting in the tub or sink and drinking a thin steam of water right from the tap.
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