YOUR CAT’S NOT BROKEN IF IT CAN’T CATCH MICE. ITS PERSONALITY IS JUST TOO NICE TO KILL

All house cats possess the innate potential to be skilled predators, even if they rarely display this behavior. This is evident in viral TikTok videos where cats nonchalantly watch mice that are easy prey, showing little interest in pursuing them.

According to scientists, these cats aren’t lazy or defective; rather, they have more docile personalities that reduce their hunting drive.

Emmanuelle Baudry, an ecologist and lead author of the study “Pet Cat Personality Linked to Owner-Reported Predation Frequency,” explains that cats with more sociable and friendly traits—whether towards people or other cats—tend to catch less prey.

“This isn’t about cats being defective—it’s about them being perfectly healthy and friendly, wonderful pets,” Baudry told USA TODAY.

For years, scientists overlooked the varying personalities of cats, as Baudry and her co-authors noted in their 2022 study. It’s only recently that biologists have started to explore the idea that a cat’s unique personality might be linked to its hunting behavior, the authors explained.

The study out of France “is super interesting because we’re in an age where we’re spending a lot more time studying cats and cat personalities, and kind of finding all the nuances to the behavior,” said Wailani Sung, a cat behaviorist who helped make the 2022 Netflix documentary Inside the Mind of a Cat.

All cats have ability to catch and kill

Unless your cat is very old or ill, it can instinctually stalk rodents and pounce at birds, Baudry said.

Scientists have long observed that kittens do not need to be taught how to hunt, and that they’re born with the ability and knowledge to catch their own food, said Sung, who now works with the animal shelter Joybound People & Pets in Walnut Creek, California.

“But cats have distinct personalities, something cat owners are well aware of,” Baudry said.

Sung, who grew up in Flushing, Queens, recalled having two pet cats with differing hunting behaviors. Blackie, a female tuxedo cat who was rescued from the street as a 6-month-old kitten, and Veenie, a male adopted as an adult from the humane society, were her two very different feline companions.

Once, when a mouse appeared in Sung’s childhood home, Blackie pounced on it with the precision of a snake striking its target, while Veenie simply nuzzled up to the mouse, Sung recounted with a laugh.

“It really showcased their different personalities and how they each respond to prey,” Sung said.

According to Sung, kittens raised in the wild with ample hunting practice from an early age may retain a stronger instinct to hunt throughout their lives.

What different personalities do cats have?

Baudry and other researchers in France analyzed over 2,500 pet cats that had access to the outdoors. Some of the cats brought prey home and some did not.

The scientists found that a cat’s prey drive correlated with these main personality traits: Agreeableness, adventurousness, aggressiveness/dominance and shyness, which researchers called “neuroticism.”

Genetics and the cat’s home environment also contribute to the animal’s personality, said Bruce Kornreich, a professor at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine who focuses on cats.

“It may be that the same genetic mechanism that causes them to want to cuddle with their owner also makes them less likely to hunt,” Kornreich told USA TODAY.

If your cat is friendly or shy, it’s less likely to hunt, study says

Baudry’s study found cats with highly agreeable personalities, like snuggling and spending quality time with their owners, were far less likely to bring home rodents and birds.

Cats that were more adventurous, curious or aggressive were more likely to bring back prey. Cats that are bullies toward other cats also correlate with a higher prey drive, the study found.

The authors noted, “Personality differences appear to account for the wide variation in predation rates among domestic cats.”

However, even among cats that preferred spending time outside, there was a distinction between those that were active and those that simply relaxed outdoors, Baudry explained.

Cats that actively roamed and explored their surroundings were more inclined to hunt. In contrast, “some cats are content to just rest in a cozy spot, like under a bush,” Baudry added.