Does your cat lick plastic?

My cat licks plastic like it's some sort of an addiction: plastic bags, plastic bottles, packaging material. What's that all about? She has done it since she was little, so it's not a new thing.

This brings up two questions:

1) Do other cats like to lick plastic?

2) What do you think they get from it? Flavor? Texture? Chemicals?

Tom

I've had 6 cats, and all of them have done this at one time or another. One used to do it religiously any time a plastic bag was available.

I have no idea what the motivation is, and doing some searches, it doesn't seem like anyone does.

Mine lick the windows

Wait until your Cat fiqures out photo paper flavor..... one of our kitty's developed a taste for Photo Emulsion.. !!!! We noticed that some of our photos that we left on the table were smeary. We set a new photo out, set up a camera, when we got home we played the tape. Muffin was the culprit, she found the photo and happily set about licking it to death. Now we keep ALL photos out of tongues reach.

She now loves sleeping ON the plastic bags...

Cats, go figure!!

Mine likes to lick the glue on envelopes.

She also has a sucking fetish (my description, its generally referred to as wool sucking, a behavior common to kittens separated from mom too early). She crawls up my chest, put a paw on each shoulder and will suck and lick the heck out of my cotton t-shirts. The bad news is I'm allergic to her and I break out in hives. The things we do and put up with for our cats. Today's special was a fur ball in the bathroom sink.

Mine have never licked plastic. However, the older one will hop up onto the bed and knead the hell out of the wool top cover, all while purring loudly

If you get a white, long haired cat it will be compelled to seek out any article of black clothing or fabric and will curl up and sleep on it. Works with sweatshirts, backpacks, towels; any black cloth.

Maybe it is like kitty LSD? :madgrin:

Cat doesn't lick plastic but he will lick the puppy.

My family (and my mom in particular) have always had cats. Many cats. We never had a cat that behaved that way. I had never even heard of that behavior until a friend of mine told me that one of her cats was an obsessive plastic bag licker. Not anything plastic, just plastic bags for some reason.

I don't have cats but my sister does. Black cats naturally seek out light-coloured clothing to sit/sleep on.

She has one long-haired black cat (well, when he deigns to come home) and one black/white mix. Short-haired, but she still manages to get hair all over everything black and white.

We have two black dogs, so we have the whole range covered as well.

But until you have dealt with a Persian cat, you have no idea how invasive this type of cat hair can be. I had a job interview yesterday, and even though I keep my interview suit in a vinyl garment bag, I amused myself while waiting in the lobby by picking fine white cat hair from my pants. I have found cat hair in one of our vehicles that the cat has never been inside. I have found cat hair clinging to the top of door mouldings even though there is no way the cat could have made it up to that location. The stuff is everywhere.

My two cats do not lick plastic, but they love plastic bags. They chew them, play with them and even like to hide in them. I think it may be the crinkely noise that attracts them.

We have an old vinyl footstool that one of our cats loves to lick.

Yes, he does.

But I have a greater concern. I am sure my cat has become a zombie. He usually wakes me up in the morning purring and sometimes walking around my head.

For the last few weeks, though, he has woken me up several times biting my scalp. At first I thought he was trying to eat my hair, but now I'm sure that he is trying to pierce my skin and eat my brains.

He's 15, he's not a kitten. I don't know what to do with a zombie cat. It doesn't seem like anything my vet could handle.

Why Jayman, that's actually a VERY good thing. It shows that the cat really trusts you. It begins as kittens pushing on the mothers teats getting the milk to flow.
She now relates to you as her "Mom" someone they trust implicitly!!!

All of our cats do this. Its not something that just happens, after the cat, kitten begins to trust you, then it starts... they push, push, and plop down on the plumped up area!! Nap time!

Congratuations. you have joined the "Kitty Pillow Brigade"

Sometimes it just means you are getting fat.

Hope all goes well with the job dogfriend.

That would be my first guess too. Better wear a construction helmet while in bed

He's 11 and it took about a year in the home before he started doing that. So he was about 2 years old when he started that behavior, but he was also from a very abusive background and was a Humane rescue

The younger orange cat did that behavior from the first day I found him

I have no doubt about it. I prefer the term "big as a house" though

One of mine will readily chew on it. She doesn't eat it, fortunately, but I think she likes the crinkly sound of "crisp" bags like the kind you get from the grocery store. She always runs into the closet ahead of me to play with my suit bags.