Male cat getting underfoot

My first male cat has been around for five years. Sometimes, I am
walking around, maybe in a hurry doing stuff, but not really
paying attention to him (in other words... not causing it stress
by keying on him or anything). Sometimes he darts in front of me
to get to another location. Taking a wild guess, that seems to be
a game of "I am faster than you are". Of course it could also have
to do with trying to get my attention. If it were simple stress,
he might not run right in front of me. I have seen a similar
example with a female, as I was walking, she jumped out in front
of me paws/claws spread high and wide in the air. But obviously
she was playing.

To be clear... It's not a problem, but I might need to get used to
it.

John Doe wrote:
My first male cat has been around for five years. Sometimes, I am
walking around, maybe in a hurry doing stuff, but not really
paying attention to him (in other words... not causing it stress
by keying on him or anything). Sometimes he darts in front of me
to get to another location. Taking a wild guess, that seems to be
a game of "I am faster than you are". Of course it could also have
to do with trying to get my attention. If it were simple stress,
he might not run right in front of me. I have seen a similar
example with a female, as I was walking, she jumped out in front
of me paws/claws spread high and wide in the air. But obviously
she was playing.

To me, it sounds like he's wanting to play with you. Has he got another
cat to chase and wrestle with? Our male cat, 7 years old, lost his
brother a while back (sadly) and since then he's been trying to get some
play out of us, going for the ankles and so forth. However, we're not
as much fun as another cat and so he's taken to wandering far and wide
in search of other cats!

Eddy.

Eddy eddy.bentley removeALLbutRESTvirgin.net wrote:

John Doe wrote:

My first male cat has been around for five years. Sometimes, I
am walking around, maybe in a hurry doing stuff, but not really
paying attention to him (in other words... not causing it
stress by keying on him or anything). Sometimes he darts in
front of me to get to another location. Taking a wild guess,
that seems to be a game of "I am faster than you are". Of
course it could also have to do with trying to get my
attention. If it were simple stress, he might not run right in
front of me. I have seen a similar example with a female, as I
was walking, she jumped out in front of me paws/claws spread
high and wide in the air. But obviously she was playing.

To me, it sounds like he's wanting to play with you. Has he got
another cat to chase and wrestle with? Our male cat, 7 years
old, lost his brother a while back (sadly) and since then he's
been trying to get some play out of us, going for the ankles and
so forth. However, we're not as much fun as another cat and so
he's taken to wandering far and wide in search of other cats!

Hopefully you mean indoors, but whatever.

Generally, I think you might be right. He might be inviting me to
play "chase me". He gets some play out of our (hard-core) feral
female, but seems to get a little rough, and he would probably
like more. Sometimes he runs around the house at full speed, and I
encourage that as much as possible.
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Eddy.