r/mildlyinteresting • u/Green-Explanation-45 • 13h ago
my cat always eats exactly half of the food in her bowl and saves the other half for later
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u/Calculonx 13h ago
Is it always the same half (left/right)? There's a brain issue in humans where they literally can't see one half of the plate.
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u/SakuraTacos 13h ago
Oh that is interesting, like maybe the cat eats the other half later cuz she sees it from the other side and thinks “Oh sweet, my servant refilled the food!”
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u/fabkosta 13h ago
u/Calculonx is right. People who have certain types of brain damage literally eat only half their plate and then declare being finished, not noticing there's food on the other half. You have to turn the plate around for them to notice. I think same is probably possible for most mammals too.
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u/Intelligent-Dust8321 12h ago
Left hemi-spatial neglect
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u/LegitimateGift1792 11h ago
but wouldn't they know that a plate is a full circle and wonder where the other half of the plate is?
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u/cthulhubert 11h ago
It's kind of weird and uncomfortable thinking about the fact that "knowing" something and "wondering" something are the results of physical processes happening in a hunk of fatty gray-pink flesh in our heads. The part of our brain that handles everything about the existence of the left side of our world can shut down (because that whole lobe is supplied by one blood vessel). Intellectually I can know that a plate is a full circle, but if I've eaten everything on my plate I've eaten everything on my plate. The fact that I only think that because of brain damage doesn't make me suddenly connect these apparently unrelated facts.
Now, the brain is also remarkably flexible. People with left hemi-spatial neglect do eventually learn strategies like this, to clear their plate and then rotate it to realize the rest is there, as well as fully adapting by using other parts of their brain to handle it. But how do you stop think about "Hey what's going on over there?" if the entire concept of "over there" is no longer physically functional?
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u/Remarkable-Fish-6672 9h ago
Yes, it’s so interesting. Once I had a patient with a very pronounced hemi-spatial neglect syndrome, super classic presentation: he did not put on his t-shirt and sweater to his neglected side. He didn’t shave his face on the neglected side. Even if you pointed out, he just couldn’t do it, unless you very slowly, step by step went through it with him.
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u/fabkosta 8h ago
Do you know if they learn to intellectually oversteer their behavior, i.e. just by simple knowledge they should do be it, but not by actual perception of it? (A little bit like we all learn that brushing our teeth is a good thing to do, but if we don't do it we don't perceive anything particularly wrong immediately.)
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u/GNUGradyn 11h ago
I imagine it's less like the other half is invisible and more like the brain isn't processing its existence. So it is there and they can see it but it's not considered. It would be too much processing for our brains to fully evaluate all sensory inputs and stored information at all times so we take alot of shortcuts subconsciously to focus on what is important and different from before
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u/Shawnaverse_no1_fan 9h ago
Yeah kinda like how our nose is never in the way of seeing things: it's right there in our field of vision, but our brains know it's useless information so they make it essentially invisible. If you focus on it you can see it, especially by closing one eye and looking sideways, but you need to remember about it first..... I don't usually go around wondering if I still have a nose. I just assume it's there, same as these people might see an empty plate and assume it's empty.
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u/mekamoari 6h ago
For me just spotting the word nose before reading your comment turned its stealth off. But I do wear glasses so it's usually more prominent in my field of view.
I wonder if there's any difference between how the nose or other body parts are treated vs random background objects that are phased out of awareness all the same.
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u/valleyman86 5h ago
Ok this was a perfect example.
Here I am closing one eye and being like "Oh shit I can see my nose". Trying to see it without closing my eye it's like a shadow at best.
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u/PixelatedGiant 10h ago
They aren't blind in one eye. It's similar to how some people can hear voices. Their mind has concluded that only one half of the plate exists.
They might have to do something extreme like leave the room for a few hours and forget about the plate before they can see the other half.
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u/External_Survey8400 8h ago
No, people sometimes have this after a stroke and it is as if that side of the world ceases to exist to them. I have held the arm of someone with this condition in front of them and they did not recognise it as belonging to them. Very difficult to rehabilitate
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u/Nazamroth 10h ago
I presume it must be a malfunction like dream logic. "I ate the left half of my plate of food. Therefore the food is gone and the plate is empty. That is how this works, there is nothing to question."
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u/getrill 10h ago
That is more or less the basis of treatment for the condition in humans, teaching adaptive strategies to build "I know there should be _____", so you learn techniques to adapt and be more manual in how you interact with things.
The brain does a lot of work to make casual existence easy. For something of a reverse example that you can do yourself, consider your nose for a moment. You know it's there. When both eyes are open, you don't perceive it. Try to "see" your nose while staring straight ahead. If you close one eye, it pops right into view in the remaining view. Open the eye and it vanished again. If you look down as far as you can do one side, you get a sort of shadow of it, because looking so far away denies the brain access to the information it usually uses to delete it.
Overcoming hemispatial neglect would be somewhat similar to trying to train yourself to overcome not seeing your nose. When the basis for a condition is neurological, it is difficult or impossible to simply perceive something even if you "know" it is there. You may find workarounds, but it's still a high bar to employ them all the time.
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u/TheFunJun 12h ago
Does this only happen when it comes to food on a plate? Or does it apply to like any situation they’re looking at something?
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u/Hangry-Feline2489 11h ago
No everything. They'll often skip the blind sides book pages, try to write the numbers on an analogue clock all on the non-blind side, groom half their face, etc.
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u/MackenzieKeller 11h ago
Mostly everything. If you ask a patient this condition to draw a vase/flower/whatever, they will only draw one half. There are some funny stories of these patients only combing/shaving half their head /beard. I think oliver sacks wrote a book on this
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u/throwaway1233456799 7h ago
Yes that being said if you show them a picture of two house on top of each other: one on fire (let's say in the left of the house) the other not at all on fire and you ask them "which one would you rather live in" patient that should not be aware of the left side on fire still show a preference for the one not on fire.
If you asked why they choose B instead of A they would tell you they don't know tho!
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u/Sweet_Assumption_781 7h ago
OP you just became involved in a scientific experiment! we need a official study of your cat! we need updates! u/green-explanation-45
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u/ConglomerateCousin 11h ago
I would think she has to be able to smell that there is still food there. My moneys on: cats are weird.
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u/insanelygreat 11h ago edited 11h ago
Hemispatial neglect, sometimes called hemineglect or hemi-inattention syndrome.
EDIT: Just to clarify: They're not actually blind to it -- that would be hemianopsia which doesn't produce this symptom -- they can't attend to it. It's an attentional deficit.
(I'm providing this as an explanation of what the parent comment is describing, not as a diagnosis.)
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u/Zegram_Ghart 10h ago
Homonymous Hemianopia (the loss of one or the other half of your vision) actually can produce the same symptom- it’s a relatively common thing for patients suffering from it to get up having eaten half their food.
Presumably it’s MORE common when the effect comes from the brain directly, but it doesn’t rule out a cause on the nerve (if it’s actually a symptom of anything, and not just the cat being weird, of course)
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u/Azeron955 12h ago
this would imply that cats have brains, which I dont think so
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u/willstr1 8h ago
It might also be whisker comfort related. Apparently some cats are a bit particular about their whiskers rubbing against things which can lead to them only eating the center of their food dish and ignoring the sides. Depending on the cat's preferred eating position it might be something like that.
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u/Ok_Let8786 13h ago
Reference to somewhere? Our dog literally does this
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u/PeterDTown 13h ago
This is hemispatial neglect and it occurs in cats and dogs as well as humans. In veterinary medicine, it is usually referred to as hemi-neglect or hemi-inattention syndrome.
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u/JijiSpitz 12h ago
Is this something that needs to be treated? My cat does this, but he’s never had any traumatic brain injury.
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u/Miyon0 13h ago
Yeah I think this cat might have that brain condition where you can only see one half of the plate.
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u/Green-Explanation-45 10h ago
she comes back and eats the other half around dinner without me turning the plate
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u/TheProphetRob 8h ago
My Yorkie does something similar. He'll scarf his food down until he can see the bottom of his bowl, then he'll slow down to only eating couple of pieces every few hours until I refill it, like he's rationing during the Blitz
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u/Visible_Relative_129 7h ago
Animals with that condition will still do that, they just notice it with their good side later and go eat the rest. I heard a story of a cat who had this and ate half the bowl, spun all the way around until he could see the other side with his “good side,” and then ate the rest.
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u/ToaruBaka 10h ago
Both of our cats do this.
Unfortunately our fatass orange doesn't respect her sister's saved food :(
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u/UnbearableWhit 8h ago
The real question is, is she eating it from the opposite side of the bowl the next time? Then you'd know she can't see half the bowl.
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u/Alecto1717 11h ago
My dog does this and has no eye/brain issues that show up in any other facet of his life. Based on where he came from, I think it's a food scarcity issue; he only eats half until I'm back from work then eats the other half, doesn't touch it while I'm gone.
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u/kwonza 13h ago
We also know the cat came from a lady with multiple cats so maybe she is used to sharing stuff. Also half of the plate is more than enough food for one time
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u/Miyon0 12h ago
It’s not really the fact that it’s ’half the plate’ that is the issue.
It’s the fact that it’s specifically EXACTLY vertically half that’s the issue. Theres a condition in pets and older people where you become unable to perceive the other side of your vision after a stroke.
It’s called ‘Hemispatial neglect’. It’s not the same as blindness. Where one side of your vision is dark or something. It’s like, the other half literally does not exist.
https://tactustherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/neglect-2.jpg
It normally happens after a stroke. So it’s possible that at some point this kitty had a stroke.
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u/Worth_Gap4226 11h ago
Wouldn't the cat be able to smell the other half of the food and at least turn it's head to see it? Or would it still be like it doesn't exist?
I can understand it more in humans as usually we are using cutlery from farther away rather than eating out of a pseudo-trough.
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u/fatherofraptors 11h ago
Not really. It's really difficult to picture or explain, but it's like the other half simply doesn't exist, it's not that they just don't see it visually, it's that their brain can't even acknowledge the existence of anything on that side.
People with this condition when asked to draw a clock, will put all 12 numbers on the same side. It's really bizarre.
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u/liverstrings 10h ago
It's not just vision, it's the whole concept of the left side. If you smell cookies, but cookies aren't there, you're not going to eat cookies.
It can adjust and shift too. If they read a newspaper, they'll only read the right side. And then just the right side becomes the standard, so they'll only read the right half of the right side. Then just the right half of that. So they perceive a sort of narrowing wedge. It's wild.
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u/TheSilverOne 12h ago
They rely on smell too much for it to really matter if they can see it or not thought right?
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u/PraetorFaethor 11h ago
It's not exactly a vision issue, it's a brain issue. It's not a matter of half the plate not being seen, but not being perceived in any way. To the afflicted individual it's as if that half of reality isn't there at all.
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u/nsk_nyc 12h ago
We have an ongoing joke as to why one of our cats doesn’t like to eat if the bowl is not brimming with food. “Reason” being is that he enters “conservation mode” and doesn’t know when he’ll get fed again. 🤭.
I love how perfectly neat she leaves it.
My dog does when she’s bored of her food. She’ll eat all the “visible” food (from my angle) so that I can give her, her post food dental treats!
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u/ClaretClarinets 12h ago
If my cats can see the bottom of the bowl at all it means they're starving and I must address the problem immediately. Addressing the problem usually means I just shake the bowl a little.
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u/teatreez 11h ago
The real reason is that it can irritate their whiskers (very sensitive body part) to rub against the sides of the bowl when they’re eating food off the bottom of the bowl :)
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u/trialbyfervor 9h ago
Look into whisker fatigue. Their whiskers are very sensitive, and so having them brush on the sides of the bowl can irritate/hurt them.
It’s best to have a very shallow bowl or even plate for them to eat off of, or, what I do cause I free feed, his bowl is always kept overfull, and it’s wide enough that if he has to actually get into the bowl it won’t bother him.
I didn’t know about it until recently so I love sharing the knowledge.
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u/sloppy_sheiko 11h ago edited 8h ago
I had a little kitty that would take little pieces of dry food and hide them around our deck. She was always well fed/taken care of, a ridiculously good hunter and still felt the need to stash a piece of kibble here and there. My wife and I called them her ‘apocalypse nuggets’. RIP Shady cat!
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u/ChargeSpiritual5317 8h ago
I love that it’s a universal how black cats love getting disgusting as possible lol! Mine used to crawl onto my lap covered in cobwebs too
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u/sloppy_sheiko 7h ago
Haha! So true..
Shady was convinced that we had control over the rain and would get FURIOUS when we didn’t ’turn it off’
Her signature maneuver was going outside, get soaking wet/muddy paws and then demand to be dried off. 2min later, guess who’s demanding go outside again lol?!
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u/SomethingWittyShrug 11h ago
If I had to guess she was laying traps for rodents to come get food so she could hunt them.
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u/SeekingAnonymity107 9h ago
Interesting! Wonder if there is evidence of cats setting traps
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u/Feedar_ 9h ago
Look at this dumbass rummaging through dust and spider webs, that’s what a dumbass gets (lovingly)
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u/sloppy_sheiko 9h ago
Ha! She was most certainly a little dumbass, especially in that picture.
We had lived in that house for right around seven years and Shady had always been obsessed with the attic (probably mice in there, it was old/country house).
Last day of the move I figured I’d let her check it out and all she came back with was a spiderweb helmet & some disappointment.
Still one of my favorite pictures of that little goober..
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u/ChrysanthemumGrit 2h ago
She may have had a stroke. This looks like hemispatial neglect. Humans do it too when they’ve had a specific form of brain damage from a stroke that interferes with visual information processing. Try turning the plate 180^ when she is eating. If it is from hemispatial neglect, she will eat the “refilled” plate.
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u/izzmosis 1h ago
Mine started doing this so I rushed him to the vet in a panic, but it turns out he’s just weird.
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u/Odd-Scientist-2529 12h ago
Does your cat have hemisensory neglect?
When humans do this unmindfully its a sign of a neurological condition
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u/Agreeable_Reaction11 11h ago
Oh yes, you are right! I remember that. A sign of that is, that affected people only eat half of their plate
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u/kkngs 10h ago
Oliver Sachs covered a case study like that in one of his books.
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u/Odd-Scientist-2529 9h ago
Yes! Great book.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.
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u/SirVanyel 11h ago
Sometimes the condition is just a little bit of tism, and some cats truly do be like that
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u/AmItheonlySaneperson 10h ago
My food autism is never eating the last bite of a hotdog
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u/Sharp-Reporter2598 10h ago
I had a friend who refused to drink the last sip of a canned drink. Called it the “coke butt” and compared it to pizza crust. I don’t really talk to him anymore
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u/jetpack324 12h ago
My cat eats only the center, like an inverted volcano. As soon as she sees a tiny bit of the bottom of the bowl, she harasses me because it’s ‘empty’. I reshape it to a volcano shape and she is happy.
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u/AsleepRefrigerator42 12h ago
This is likely whisker irritation! They want the food but don't like their whiskers brushing against the sides of the bowl
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u/wooking 11h ago
We have a plate for him and still gets annoyed when there is a hole of food right in the middle.
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u/mgush5 10h ago
what would happen if you got a bowl that was more like a cone? Everything would fall down so she'd only have the bare minimum in the bottom...
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u/sosickaboutthis 11h ago
Lol same. My cat will act like she’s skin and bones until I give the food bowl a good shake 😂
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u/Toxonomonogatari 13h ago
Do they actually leave the remaining half on one side of the bowl and keep the other clear? Your cat may be acoustic
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u/GlassSpider21 13h ago edited 9h ago
You can tell by humming into their butt and seeing whether there's an echo
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u/InnerAd3454 12h ago
Honestly, great advice. One shouldn’t assume the cat is acoustic based on just one picture. A diagnostic test like this is better.
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u/NoCondition8257 12h ago
Pretty sure cats are all electric these days, tonewood got too expensive to keep building acoustic ones
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u/Zulishk 12h ago
Upvoted because funny typo. Don’t edit it, OP.
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u/pixeldust6 11h ago
Most likely intentional, like "cats with homophobia" or "sewer slide" at this point https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/acoustic-slang
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u/Lieutenant_0bvious 12h ago
My cat would eat until he asploded. He gets a half-cup a day, divided by 4 feedings (auto feeder). He doesn't like it. But he's slimming up.
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u/donoteatshrimp 12h ago
one day i forgot to put the block of cheese back in the fridge and the next morning i went down and the cat had eaten the ENTIRE block and looked like a basketball, when we took her to the vets there was a chart on the wall of cat treat calorie equivalent to human hamburgers, anyway we did the maths and she ate the equivalent of 30 burgers in one sitting and became 30 burgers meg from that point on
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u/helpiminabox 11h ago
I hope she turned out okay, but I also hope she looked at you like "Who, me? It could've been anyone who ate that block of cheese."
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u/JeanRalfio 8h ago
Ask you vet how much you should be feeding your cat per meal and they will tell you it's so much less than you are giving them.
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u/Mtnbkr92 6h ago
My cat grazes. We just have his crunchies (kibble) out and he eats as needed. We feed him wet food twice per day and he finishes that, but his dry food he just eats as needed.
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u/Teadrunkest 4h ago
Same with mine. They pace themselves with kibble pretty well.
Which is nice because if I ever have to leave for a long weekend I can just put out Cat Food Mountain and they’ll be perfectly content.
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u/bangbangracer 13h ago
Out of curiosity, what's your cat's backstory or history?
Growing up, we had a cat who came from the garbage can, and he did this all the time. It was like he had food scarcity in his youth, so he would ration it.
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u/lekker-boterham 12h ago
I absolutely love how dog owners are like “We were on a breeder’s waiting list for 2 years and finally got our puppy! He was $1400” and then cat owners are like “yeah I found him in the dumpster behind Safeway” 😂
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u/1767gs 13h ago
Mf livin like they dont know where the next meal comin from. I get it
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u/Trashbagok 13h ago
Meanwhile my cat eats like she's never had a meal before and someone will vanish with it unless she finishes it in exactly 14 seconds.
Like, girl, you are the only cat in this house, it's just you and me, and I'm not going to take it from you...
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u/Justninetoes 12h ago
Mine cleans her whole bowl and then ralphs it up in the middle of the carpet. So annoying 🥺
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u/RyunWould 12h ago
That's kind of a lot of food.
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u/JeanRalfio 8h ago
That's what I was thinking and was surprised how far into the comments I had to go to see someone else with the same thought.
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u/I_love-tacos 12h ago
My dog used to do the same. One day, after her usual hal bowl, I shook the plate in front of her and she looked at me like if I killed her mother lol. She proceeded to eat one half of the plate and looking at me the whole time absolutely offended that I messed with her.
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u/totodile31 11h ago
Zeno's cat. Forever approaching an empty bowl, never quite reaching it.
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u/Green-Explanation-45 13h ago edited 10h ago
here she is lol her name is Miau she was a rescue from an old lady who had too many persians to care for. i got her 3 years ago and she’s quirky in general