Help! My cat is like a small child who puts everything into her mouth :(

[natynat]

My cat is putting everything, and I mean EVERYTHING into her mouth. I have to vacuum every day because i there's a crumb on the floor, she'll eat it. If it's a clump of hair that fell off her (or me), she'll eat it (she's also throwing up more hair balls recently). She bites my walls and the boards around them. She also bites/chews the corners of my radiators. WTH? I'm worried that this is really bad for her teeth/health...I'm considering buying her a bone or something to chew on lol....don't only dogs normally do this??? Does anyone encounter this with their pets? What to do??

[MortgageQueen]

How old is she? Is it possible this is anxiety? How does she act about food? Does she seem hungry or is it more curiosity?

[French Lady]

I've had several cats and it's common for young ones to swallow stuff. I cope with it by keeping harmful stuff out of the way and providing something for them to chew on. Putting catnip on the chewing object helps.

[Angela273]

Both of our cats are adopted. King has a broken tail and a broken tooth. Part of his way of trying to help wear down a sharp spot on his tooth way by chewing on cardboard boxes. He would turn it into confetti. Once we had his tooth filed down a bit he rarely chews on boxes anymore. It might be a small thing to look into. I am not sure why your cat is eating absolutely everything off the floor.

[natynat]

She is a year and a half. She eats her food...sometimes out of curiosity (using her paws) and most of the time because she's hungry, I guess. I've never heard of cats having anxiety, but I doubt that she has anything to be anxious about. She's very much loved and she knows this...she is very affectionate around us, she sleeps with us and she has a "blanky" on the couch that she sleeps on all the time (it's grey like her and soft, so she paws at it often too...). It's pretty bad, sometimes I see her licking the floor and have to open her mouth to extract a piece of paper or hair that she'd swallowed .

[natynat]

Oh, and I've bought catnip for her. She sniffed it and walked away, leaving it to wilt...

[walkonby]

I am stumped natynat, but also curious? I thought maybe it was a kitty teething stage? Our little Hamlet is maybe about 5-6 months old and he constantly chews the sides of the dog biscuit boxes, or the corners of the reusable grocery bags, He carries his toys from the basement to the up stairs in his mouth and then knocks them back down to chase them all over again. We have caught him slinking away off of a small table with my DD's necklace in his mouth! So now we have to watch the tables are kept clear of small things.
Hope someone else knows why your cat is eating things, if not ask your vet maybe?
I cannot say he eats anything, but he bats it about the floor.

[natynat]

I'm very curious too. Like Hamlet, Keisha puts stuff in her mouth (i.e. toys, hair clips, small converters, etc) and chews on them. I'm not so worried about that as to why she feels the need to clean my floors by eating anything that she finds on there (thank goodness she's not tasting her litter). Ok, now my house sounds like a dump, which I assure you it's not, but it's still impossible to keep the floors pristine clean everyday.

[Natalka]

Have you tried training her with a stern NO, or how about a water squirter?

Frankly, the NO works great, but we've always done that from kitten ages, so I haven't tried training a grown cat.

[Tweets77]

When our cat "adopted" us, he was just a tiny kitten and had been on his own for awhile. He thought that he was starving all the time, and would just about murder you for some food, any food, sometimes it wasn't even food, he just thought that it was. He too, would eat just about anything that he found on the floor, including dust bunnies! He also liked to "take" shiny things (my earrings, a silver chain or 6) and hide them on me, only to find sometimes weeks later. I always thought that such behaviors were set up when they were quite young, and sometimes you just had to learn to live with the quirks.

[frugal50]

she could be teething?
or that could be part of her personality
to be safe, you can always take her to the vet
to have her mouth checked
and bloodwork will answer any health concerns.

[abbasgirl]

I dunno either. But you're doing the right thing keeping hair off of the floor. Most of the bits that she picks off of the floor are harmless and her own fur will either go through her or come out as a hair ball. But cats aren't equipped to deal with human hair. If your hair is long and she swallows a lot of it, it could get stuck in her intestines. Don't worry about it though. It's just something to watch out for. Just keep doing what you're doing. You might also want to get her a tube of hair ball treatment - it's an oil that will help coat her insides to help fur and hair go through her. It doesn't get rid of hair balls that are already in her system, so you may find she continues to cough them up at first. Just keep giving it to her regularly.
There's also a spray you can get that isn't toxic, but tastes terrible to a cat. You can spray it on things that you don't want her to chew on, such as the walls and radiators. I can't remember what it's called, but you should be able to find it at a pet store.

[oscarandme]

I have 2 little rescues and the little girl, she sits and if something is at mouth height, she knaws at it, so now the little boy has picked up this bad habbit, a ribbon falls on the floor, he chews on it and down his throat it goes. I usually watch him and what falls on the floor but now it is whatever is on the bed, the sofa, anything, silk flowers... I think sometimes it is boredom but they have toys, cookies at night, 5 different types of kibble and a shared whiskas pate in the morning. So hunger is not a problem and once in a while I give them the tip of a finger of furball medicine from the Vet. I would call your vet and usually the assistants are very knowlegeable about certain behaviors and might be able to troubleshoot with you or she might just say bring your baby in.

[MortgageQueen]

Anxiety can be caused by an imbalance, not necessarily situational. Definitely talk to the vet. It could indeed be a quirk that she may eventually grow out of. My one cat loves to chew on boxes and unfortunately. . .shoes.
WHy don't you try getting her a few rawhide flavoured chews? Maybe she'll like them? . . .

[alicia]

One of our cats is just like this - I jokingly say "oh he must have PICA". He eats floss, ribbon, fur straight from his grooming brush, crumbs, plastic, cellophane, and the weirdest one was... lettuce. Anything that makes it to the floor by accident isn't safe from Andy (my avatar). The trouble is, he thinks he is always hungry even though he is properly (over) fed. We just make sure to tidy up if something gets on the floor.