Wool sucker cats?

[PurpleOne]

It looks like I have one.
She's almost 7 months and I think she has been taken from mum / weaned too early.
DD1 and DD2 and myself all have fleece blankets on our beds..and the damn cat has slobbered on all of them.
Luna (the cat) has her own bed made of fake leather and an old cushion, but the inside of the main bed is made of fleece.

When she is smurgling, or kneading dough, she just licks everything. We don't know why we call it smurgling, the kids mentioned it once and it stuck....it's when the cat is 'super kneading with claws out'.
She won't bite the material, unless there is a nice foot moving around underneath. She just licks for hours, and sometimes purring like mad. Usually on my bed and in my ears.

I'm wondering if anyone elses cat is like this? Or is my mog slightly OCD with her sleep / bed time rituals? She doesn't do it with cotton or anything else, except fleece blankets. Pajamas included!
She's nearly 7 months and makes a mess everywhere else, but very territorial about her fleeces.

Has she got a few scratching posts?

My cat loves hers, but also enjoys using a flat packed-cardboard box to scratch her claws on. You might find that helps.

When they 'knead' with their claws I think it is known as 'making their puddings'

Hope that helps

Making puddings!

She has a scratching post indoors, and a lovely garden fence outside to scratch on. (she likes wood lol)

Maybe it's just my mog then? I was worried that she might start licking wood when scratching, but she doesn't. She just saves her licking for bedtime. Tested her last night and put a fleece on the sofa. Sure as eggs is eggs, she started smurgling and making her bed up...and licking the hell out of the blanket. Luna also found a nice pair of DD1's pajamas in the ironong pile. Ironing ended up scattered all over the floor and she dragged the fleece pjs up onto the sofa and started licking them as well!

I've heard of bitter orange / apple spray to deter her. What exactly is it? and is it chemical free / organic? etc

Is she a pedigree because it's well known in Siamese and Burmese? But it sounds as if you are talking about polyester fleece...

This rings a bell, but I think I'm mixing it up with a cat we had once that ate string, wool, shoelaces - you would come down in the morning and find your trainers had been scalped.

Have you thought of getting another cat - maybe she's young enough to accept it OK and they would be company for each other. We've always had pairs of cats because I heard they can get destructive if bored or lonely. It might be she just has the kind of temperament where she wants another cat to cuddle up to.

This is common, it is not unusual. They usually grow out of it (but not completely). Kneading is nothing to do with grooming their claws so a scratching post would not help this behaviour.

She is kneading to stimulate milk as she would have done to her mother's tummy as a tiny kitten and is salivating at the memory of the milk.

Fleece/fake fur is obviously very similar to the real thing hence her dribbling/enjoyment increases for those particular fabrics.

Cats aren't keen on citrus. Orange peel can deter them but TBH when the smell wears off they'll be back.

I think its best to encourage them to only sleep in their own baskets with the fluffiest fleece that they take to. She will hopefully only "snurgle" her own fleece instead of all the family's!

PS this behaviour bears no relation on willingness to cuddle up to another cat, or human. The most antisocial cat in the world might still display this behaviour. They are lost in their "memories" rather than craving a real live connection as it were. I have never seen a cat "snurgle" another cat (that is not it's mother).

cool, I stand corrected. Thanks for introducing "smurgling" into my vocabulary though

MDS

Cats will often treat socks as "prey" funnily enough, and will stalk/hide them. Sometimes they growl if you try to take a sock off them. It is very funny.

Cats are very complex, peculiar little characters but that's why I love them so much

There are tons of odd behaviours. One of our cats is obsessed with toilet rolls and will attack one until it's a shredded mess.

Another has a thing about carrier bags and chews and dribbles on them (as well as getting in and out of them).

Another loved to chew the arms of DH's glasses (while he was wearing them

They lie in the oddest places, they can be huffy as hell for no good reason and they love to attack a naked foot like nothing else. They have manic half hours where they run around demented, so odd but such fascinating creatures!

My siamese cats do this. Once they're started there's pretty much nothing you can do about it. We just make sure they have their own stuff and keep everything else out of the way. They also pee on plastic bags so beware!

Oh! Smurgling and Frapping! What fantastic words. DCat2 licks plastic. Weirdo.

She's def not a pedigree. Just a bog standard british shorthair.

Luna also lived with her cousin up until 5 months old. I met cousin and 'mummy' before I went to collect her. RL owner has 4 kids and is pg again so wanted to get rid of the kitties before the baby was born, so we took one on.
She's also def not a lap cat. She will run as soon as she sees the DD's, but will happily go outside, snurgle on the sofa while I'm MNing, or snurgle on my bed at night. Luna is alos obsessed with toilet rolls. I learnt that the hard way LittleladyLL! To buy Tesco value bog rolls and rememeber to close the door at night!.

Very rarely, when it's really cold and I can't afford to put my heating on ; I will drape a fleece around my shoulders and Luna will purr like crazy on my shoulders, purrring and licking the blanket....

Oh, and LLLL, and Madame Death...this is the whole reason why I called her Luna. Pagan family, moon watching etc, but she was named after the word'Lunatic'. She has a good blast in the morning, then sleep the day away. She has her tea and more sleep and will go out for couple of hours in the eve. When she gets back in, she is leaping off the walls, chasing foil balls and torch lights. Quite often she leaps onto both the DD's heads for an extra pounce!
She's a wonderful creature and very loving. I just had never seen this licking behaviour in any other cat.

We adopted 2 brothers as kittens.
one is fine/normal (as much as cats ever are!).
the other smurgles at the drop of a hat!

and always has. used to loads when he was younger. he's nearly 5 now and it's not as bad.

he would do it on anything so i dedicated a sarong as HIS.
when i went to get it out (used to hide it under my pillow during the day) at bedtime he would go nuts
prob would still do the same now but he will settle for curling up as near to me as poss.

i would suggest getting her her own blanket and let her get on with it for now.
i read in an advice column about cats that if it doesn't bother you, then let it happen. just limit it so saliva doesn't go everywhere