When COVID hit, people asked how lockdowns affected cats. The truth is, most urban cats already live in a kind of permanent lockdown—they never leave the apartment. If they don’t have enough stimulation, they’ll try to create it. That’s where the knocking-things-over behavior comes in.
Some cats push objects off tables because they like movement. Others do it because they enjoy your reaction. When Patata used to do it, I thought he was just messing with me. But now I realize he was probably trying to keep the game going—because every time I picked up whatever he knocked over, he got to do it again.