Cat glove carrying behavior

Question

Our cat has a habit of waiting until night time, or until we leave the house to start hunting around for gloves. She likes to pick up gardening gloves, athletic gloves, gloves from superhero costumes, etc. and carry these around with her while meowing loudly and repetitively until she drops the glove off, usually outside of someone's bedroom door. She's been doing this for years and it hasn't really been a problem.
Now, our five year old son wakes up if she does this in the middle of the night because it scares him. She seems to always find gloves in different places, but I'm wondering if we should hide them all in places where she can't get them. Is it ok to try to prevent her from doing this? We don't want our son to be scared by the noise at night.

Kai · Accepted Answer

I don't see any reason why you shouldn't keep the gloves away from your cat. However, it may be the case that the cat will continue meowing without the gloves, or the cat will find something else to transfer this behavior to.
I would guess the root cause is the cat is getting bored or lonely at night. You might also try minimizing this behavior by waiting until late to give the cat its evening meal, and then thoroughly playing with the cat before feeding it. The idea is to get the cat tired out and sleepy after it eats its food, which hopefully will encourage it to just sleep through a lot of the night.

Shadow The Vaccinated Wizard · Answer

I've seen female cats do this exact thing with their kittens: grabbing them one by one, walking around with them held up tight in their mouth while meowing very loudly then eventually drop them in the destination, or lie down to feed them.
So looks like something caused your cat to treat gloves as her kitten. You remember when it started? Maybe reaching to the root of this you'll be able to "undo" the behavior and avoid frustration on either side.
Until then, I have an idea, but it depends if you have a yard outside the house. If you have, put the gloves there in a large box and let her meow out, this way the noise shouldn't wake your son up. Good luck! :)

Cat glove carrying behavior

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