To tame a cat in Minecraft, you need to find a stray cat (usually in villages or at swamp huts) and feed it raw cod or raw salmon until hearts appear above its head.

Quick Scoop

1. What you need first

  • Raw cod or raw salmon; you can get both by fishing or killing fish in rivers and oceans.
  • At least 10 raw fish is smart, because taming uses random chance and may take several tries.
  • A village or swamp hut, since that’s where cats naturally spawn as strays.

2. Finding a cat

  • Stray cats spawn in villages that have a few beds and villagers, and in swamp huts near witches.
  • Villages can have multiple coat types (tabby, tuxedo, siamese, etc.), and there are 11 total cat variants in the game.
  • New stray cats can keep spawning over time near villages that have fewer than five cats.

3. How to tame the cat (step-by-step)

  1. Collect raw cod or raw salmon from nearby water.
  1. Put the fish in your hotbar and hold it in your hand.
  1. Sneak (crouch) and slowly move toward the cat so you don’t scare it away.
  1. Stop moving when the cat starts walking toward you on its own.
  1. Right-click or tap on the cat while holding the fish to feed it.
  1. Keep feeding until you see hearts appear above the cat’s head and it gets a collar—now it’s tamed.

If it doesn’t tame after a few fish, don’t panic—this is normal. It can take anywhere from 1 to around 10 fish because of the taming chance system.

4. What tamed cats can do

  • Tamed cats will follow you around when they’re not sitting.
  • They scare away creepers and phantoms, which makes them surprisingly useful for survival.
  • At sunrise, a tamed cat that slept near you on a bed can leave you a gift (like string or other small items), which is tied to an in-game achievement.

5. Extra: Breeding cats

  • Once you have two tamed cats, feed each of them raw cod or raw salmon to put them in love mode.
  • They will produce a kitten whose coat matches one of the parents, and you’ll have to wait about 5 minutes before breeding them again.
  • Kittens grow up in about 20 minutes (one Minecraft day), or faster if you keep feeding them fish.

6. Forum-style tips and “latest” chatter

  • Many players in recent guides say crouch-walking and then “waiting for the cat to approach you” is the safest strategy across current versions (1.20–1.21+).
  • Players still love cats for “creeper defense” and for going after the “A Complete Catalogue” advancement, which requires taming all 11 variants.
  • Content creators in 2024–2025 videos and blogs keep highlighting cats as one of the easiest and most fun starter pets compared with wolves or horses.

Mini example story

Imagine you’ve just found a small plains village at night. You hear a meow, spot a tuxedo cat darting behind a house, and spend a minute fishing in the village pond. With 12 raw cod in your inventory, you crouch and shuffle toward the cat, stop, and watch it slowly pad over. Three fish later, hearts pop up, a red collar appears, and now that once-suspicious stray follows you back to your starter base while creepers keep their distance.

TL;DR: Get 10+ raw cod or salmon, find a stray village/swamp cat, crouch and let it come close, then feed it fish until hearts appear and a collar shows up—congrats, you’ve tamed your Minecraft cat.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.