Why do my cats love to lick plastic so much?

My wife also likes to lick my plastic but I keep on telling her that the credit cards have already reached their limits..............

Cats get seriously bored. They will do ANYTHING to entertain themselves.

Q & A, New York Times, C. Claiborne Ray, July 5, 2005

The Cat and the Bag

Q. Why does my cat insist on licking or even chewing plastic bags from the grocery store?

A. As with so many cat behaviors, the exact reason remains mysterious, said Dr. Katherine Houpt, a veterinary behaviorist and professor of animal behavior at the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.

Her informed guess is that cats tend to go after something novel in their territory, both checking it out and marking it as theirs.

Though the exact chemistry is unknown, Dr. Houpt said, smell attracts cats and makes them want to taste. Bags fresh from the grocery store may retain both interesting food odors and traces of volatile chemicals used in making flexible plastics.

Cats will also lick photographic film and pictures and chew on telephone cords, she noted. She once tested snippets of film on several cats and found that her own cats ignored it while two others ate it.

Licking bags usually presents no health problem to cats, though ingesting them could cause serious trouble in the form of digestive blockage.

Occasionally a cat's taste for plastic represents an obsessive-compulsive disorder, which can be treated with a tricyclic antidepressant drug, most often clomipramine.

Plastic chewing could also indicate a dietary craving, Dr. Houpt said, though researchers have never found any consistent vitamin shortage or medical problem. She suggested planting a cat garden of grass and herbs or otherwise increasing roughage in the diet.

Some cats urinate on strange bags, Dr. Houpt said, so be happy if yours just lick.

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Many people with cats write to me about this feline addiction to plastic. Some also lick paper money and photographs. Paper money is sized with an extract of tallow (animal fat), and photos often have an emulsion finish that contain stearates derived from animal fat, which are used to soften plastic. --Dear Dr. Fox. Washington Post, Nov 22, 2005

I have wondered the same thing...right now one of my cats,Leah, is lying on her exercise mat...and is licking it...she also loves plastic bags as you described. It is odd..but evidently very common.

It is either the cat enjoys the texture of it on his or her tongue or it has a slight "odor" they are attracted to

Cats licking (or even chewing on and eating) plastic is a behavior that we humans have wondered about for a while, but don't have a definate answer for yet. There are several theories behavioralists have for this behavior. It is mostly believed now that there is a slight odor to plastic that some cats find hard to resist. The plastic also may have a smooth texture and be cool, and feel and taste good on their tongues.

Another possibility is that if you notice them sucking or chewing on the bags as well, it may be similar to wool sucking in that it may be another "nursing" type behavior.

Until we can converse in the same language as cats, we won't know the answer for sure (and even if we could, who knows if they would tell!), but these are the leading theories by feline behavioralists. Whatever the reason, its always good to try and keep plastic bags and similar items out of their reach, especially when you aren't watching, just to ensure they don't accidentally ingest any, or get their heads tangled IN a bag, or other potential dangers! While they seem to like the plastic, safety should always be first!

Hope this helps! :)

-Beth (and her cats Stargazer <--(Plastic licker!) and Forest :) )

your cats are just trying to freak you out. theyve already got you posting that question, so now they know theyve got to you. next youll be waking up at night finding your cats next to your head, and youll think theyre gettin close to you, to try to keep warm at night. but really theyve been whispering things into ure sleeping ears all night long.
youre subconcious mind will take it all in, and soon youll be buying them salmon and tuna instead of cat food. thats just the beginning tho. after months youll wake up in ure house wondering what you were doing, and find out when its too late that the cats have hypnotised you and forced you to make a bomb made from materials that only kills dogs.
youl be responsible for the death of every dog whitin a 40 mile radius of your house.

so please do the right thing.

kll your cats.