Feh. My Tosha won’t chase the laser dot. She looks at it, traces it up to what I’m holding in my hand, and would rather play with that, instead. My sister’s cats? Nuts for the thing. I got a defective cat.
But she’s wicked smart.
whipes tears from his eyes
You so fucking owe me a new keyboard. Damn my boss actually came to check on me I was laughing so hard.
Our cats adore the laser pointer. Our dog does too. The kitten is a little scared yet, but I think she gets scared for the most part because the other cats get so crazy. My husband (the big meany) likes to get one of our cats to chase it around in a circle until he gets dizzy and falls over (the cat, not my husband, though that would be even funnier yet, I think). We heard recently that if you have an overweight cat, playing with the cat with a laser pointer for five minutes every day will help it lose weight. One of our cats is slightly overweight, so we’re giving it a try.
Coco Le Poof tries to pick up the laser dot. I’ve tried explaining to her that while light is indeed made up of particles, they are too small for her to pick up. Also, I’ve mentioned to her that she has no thumbs. She doesn’t care. She tries to “scoop” it.
TaiPan the One-Eyed Winking Wonder doesn’t care about the laser in the least. He looks at the dot and yawns.
This topic prompted an interesting line of thought for me, one that may explain why my cat behaves the way he does. He’s into this habit of wanting in my room, then standing by the door and wanting back out again. Once out, he’ll want back in again, then out, etc.
I read this topic this morning, pulled out my laser pen and played with the cat for awhile. While playing with him, I noticed that I usually ended up with the laser near the door, and that’s where the primary laser playing area was. I’m forced to conclude that I’ve been doing that whenever I play the laser game with him.
So, in his mind he wants in to see me. He’ll get bored and decide that he wants to play with that mysterious red dot and go to the door to call for it. It doesn’t appear, but his silly servant does. His silly servant opens the door, which in his mind is a suggestion that the mysterious red dot maybe out in the hallway. Out he’ll go to investigate. His silly servant has now gone from silly to stupid because the mysterious red dot isn’t out there.
So the cat is now forced to verbally humiliate his stupid servant for having deceived him, as the mysterious red dot is not in the hallway. I interpret that to mean that he wants back in. So I attempt to verbally humiliate him and let him back in. He’ll then wonder around, searching for the mysterious red dot, and his stupid servant returns to what he was doing. The cat will then figure that the mysterious red dot must be at the door, because that’s where it always is, so he’ll go there and start calling for it. His stupid servant thinks he wants out and will go over and open the door. Thinking the previous verbal humiliation may have knocked some sense into his stupid servant, he’ll think that the mysterious red dot just may be in the hallway after all. And out he goes, only to discover that the mysterious red dot isn’t in the hallway. His fury rains down upon his stupid servant in a torrential pour. And the cycle continues.
I’m really starting to think that this is what’s going on when he does the in/out thing. Although, it could be a plan to anger me in an effort to bring on an early death. Then I’ll be one less barrier to world domination.
Sgt.Pepper, I had a cat once that trained me to play with a piece of rope with her. She loved to chase that bit of rope better than anything. I used to make her give me that cat head-bump thing before I’d play with her with the rope. Until one night, when she woke me up bumping my face with her head, then running to her rope to get me to play with her. At 3 AM. Yup, she figured that out, alright.
My Jasper dog likes to chase the laser dot. Heck, he’ll chase a flashlight beam too. It’s just a good excuse for him to run around like a nut.
Patent Number 5443036. Granted August 22, 1995 to Amiss, Kevin T. (255 S. Pickett St., #301, Alexandria, VA 22304) and Abbott, Martin H. (10549 Assembly Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030). If you tried to make money somehow, maybe a video of your cool technique for other cat lovers to try, they could sue you.
Enjoy,
Steven
My cats love chasing the red dot. My black longhair races into the living room as soon as she hears the jingle that means I’ve gotten the pointer out of the drawer. She then crouches down and starts making that clicking noise in her throat, just waiting for the light to appear. It never bothers her that she can’t actually catch it.
My brother added new level of dubious fun to the game when he used the pointer to repeatedly run my kitten into my grown, grumpy orange male cat. My brother was the only one amused by this as it turns out.
My cat figured it out, when the ‘red dot’ comes out, she looks for the hand which is holding the laser and goes after that. I love that cat!!!
Penguins at the zoo will also turn their heads to follow it. Heck, you can even reflect sunlight off your flat watch crystal and they’ll follow that.
It had almost no effect when I tried to scare off the pigeons that would frequently appear on my balcony a few years ago.
Probably best not take her swimming at sea then:
Red Light-Flashing Jellyfish Lures Prey