As you may know, I am a big fan of puzzle feeders for cats and also intrigued that some cats seem to have a paw preference when using their puzzles. With Rune having extra toes on all of his legs I became even more fascinated. He appears to use both when using his puzzle ball, but seems to prefer his right paw for other puzzles and toys. At the very least, it’s the paw he stretches out first and he bats his toys mostly with his right paw as well.
Research by Isparta and others (2020) showed that cats with a clear paw preference, be that either left or right, were better at solving food puzzles than those cats that did not have a paw preference. The cats with a paw preference found their way to the food a lot quicker with fewer paw movements.
I can hear you thinking that surely all cats have a preference for one or the other paw. Not so! Interestingly, 16 out of the 38 participating cats were ambilateral: they showed no preference for either left or right paw.
What is even more interesting is that some cats preferred to use their heads rather than paws to get to the food. One possible explanation why some cats have a head preference may be related to domestication: we tend to feed our cats from bowls which does not require any motor skills from the cat.
As with many types of research participation can be a stumbling block: of the 41 cats initially selected for the study, 3 did not move a paw at all.
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