Cats Can Play Fetch Without Being Trained, Scientists Find

Cats can play fetch without training and are usually the ones to initiate it with their owners, a new study has found.

The game fetch is usually associated with dogs—where an object, often a stick or ball, is thrown and retrieved by the pet. However, scientists have found that cats actually do it, too, and instead, they prefer to initiate the game.

A group of multi-institutional United Kingdom-based researchers surveyed 924 cat owners to reach the findings published in a Scientific Reports paper. The owners reported "fetching behaviors" in 1,154 cats they owned or had previously owned.

Study authors Jemma Forman, Elizabeth Renner and David Leavens recorded how often the cats fetched, what objects they preferred to fetch, and who usually initiated the game. They discovered that cats started games of fetch far more frequently than the owners did. When the cats initiated the game, they were also more likely to keep at the game for longer periods.

It's no secret that cats prefer to do things on their own terms, whereas dogs tend to wait for word from their owner. These findings are in keeping with this trend and suggest that cats tend to control games of fetch rather than their owners.

They also found that 59 percent of cats played fetch up to 10 times a month. Fifty-five percent of the time, the cats fetched the objects up to five times.

While it may be harder to train cats when compared with dogs, the scientists found that most cats require no training whatsoever to engage in games of fetch.

The authors report that 94 percent of owners said the cats initiated games of fetch without being explicitly trained in the game. They also found that 61 percent of cats started this behavior when they were kittens.

Of 160 cats classed as purebred, Siamese cats were most likely to play fetch. They reported that 36 Siamese cats played the game, while 16 Bengals and 12 Ragdolls also participated.

However, many pet cats were mixed breed, meaning it is impossible to determine whether a specific breed is more likely to play fetch.

During the research, there also appeared to be cats that favored playing fetch with specific objects.

Cats usually preferred to fetch with household objects, such as hair tied or crumpled paper, rather than cat toys. Cat toys were only used around 40 percent of the time, according to the study.

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Update 12/14/23, 11:58 a.m. ET: The story was updated with a new photo.