Research shows a surprising number of cats are keen to enjoy a game of fetch

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The revelation followed Delgado’s adoption of three sister kittens from an animal shelter. She was amazed to see them engage in classic fetch behaviour more commonly associated with dogs: they would bring her their toy mice to be thrown, then run to retrieve them. Despite being a lifelong cat owner, she had never seen any of her cats fetch before. 

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Intrigued, Delgado set out to explore how common this behaviour is among domestic cats, teaming up with colleagues Judith Stella, senior research scientist, and Candace Croney, professor and director of the Center for Animal Welfare Sciences, along with James Serpell from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

The study found 41% of cats fetch.

Using data previously gathered by Serpell, the researchers looked at how frequently cat fetching was reported by pet owners and set out to determine what characteristics made cats more or less likely to fetch. Their findings, recently published in the journal PLOS One, were titled in reference to the movie Mean Girls: “Making Fetch Happen: Prevalence and Characteristics of Fetching Behavior in Owned Domestic Cats (Felis catus) and Dogs (Canis familiaris).”

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Their research, which surveyed 8,224 cat owners and 73,724 dog owners, revealed that:

• Approximately 41% of cats and 78% of dogs fetch
• Cat breeds most likely to fetch include Abyssinians, Bengals, Siamese, & Siberians
• Both male cats and dogs fetch more often than females
• Younger animals fetch more frequently
• Living with dogs decreases fetching behaviours in both cats and dogs
• Indoor cats are more likely to fetch than outdoor cats

Though cats are often thought to be standoffish, this research shows that our kitties really do enjoy social interactions with people—and many are more eager to retrieve than you might expect. 

Though cats are often thought to be standoffish, this research shows that our kitties really do enjoy social interactions with people.

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“Bringing a toy to us is a social request,” says Delgado. “A lot of people mischaracterize cats as being aloof or independent, and in truth, they really do enjoy these interactions with their owners.” 

This article originally appeared in the award-winning Modern Cat magazine. Subscribe today!

If you are between the ages of 13 and 28, you may be committing a faux pas: the “Gen Z stare” — the tendency to respond to certain bids for interaction with a blank look. The culprit, some millennials say, is a lack of social awareness. If you’ve tried and failed to start a conversation with the intern, or been thoroughly ignored by the teenage Crumbl cashier, you may have witnessed it yourself.

“When you talk to certain members of Gen Z, they just kind of stare at you for five seconds and form a response, and are very not socially equipped,” the millennial cultural commentator known as Tell The Bees said in a July 7 TikTok. “I think Gen Z’s social skills were inevitably atrophied by Covid.”

As a card-carrying member of the generation, I admit that I’m guilty of the stare. While working as a barista and waitress, I’ve awkwardly blinked at customers when I wasn’t caffeinated enough to tell if they said, “Good morning,” or “How’s it going?” But I’ve also been on the receiving end. I’ve seen millennials gape when I broke the news that we’d run out of gluten-free bread. Gen Xers gawked when I asked them if they’d like their latte hot or iced, as if I should’ve had their order memorized.

Some long looks are indeed malicious. My least favorite regular, a boomer with a condescending tone and strong opinions about home fries, silently glared every time I charged him the mandatory card fee. I would stare back blankly because he never tipped.

Every emerging generation becomes the scapegoat for the social anxieties of the time.

Efe Ahworegba, 19, is a content creator who has worked in the food industry. “The Gen Z stare is basically us saying the customer is not always right,” she said in a TikTok with over 3 million likes. With over 500,000 likes, the top comment expands on the translation: “are you deadass.”

Regardless of how you’d phrase that sentiment, it’s a feeling most of us have experienced. Every emerging generation becomes the scapegoat for the social anxieties of the time. Millennials who came of age during the financial crisis — broke due to their alleged avocado toast habit — should understand that.

Born between 1997 and 2012, my cohort is the first to grow up in a heavily digital landscape, sparking worries that we aren’t capable of engaging with the real world. Pandemic-era isolation added more weight to that fear. But being a little bit rude, intentionally or not, transcends generational divides, and dealing with people’s missteps has always been the price of engaging in society.

What’s worse than the occasional interpersonal hiccup is misdiagnosing such faux pas as endemic. As much as saying “please” and “thank you” and “good morning, welcome to Starbucks, what can I get started for you?” is an integral part of the social contract, so is having grace for those who flub their end of the bargain.

Holding the poor manners of a few against all of Gen Z without considering that you might stare, too, is antisocial in its own way. I just won’t call it millennial hypocrisy.