One of my cats will be playing with a piece of yarn (or anything that a cat routinely plays with). She will really go after it for a long time. Then suddenly, she will tire of it, rest, eat, whatever. Then a few minutes later, she will walk across the room, see the piece of yarn, and it’s like, “Oh my God! What is this? I must play with it as its nature is unlike anything I have ever encountered before!”
I have a male cat who loves to chase the end of a plastic straw. He runs in little-bitty circles to chase it when a person drags it around. He will do it every single time he sees it. He is ten years old and has done it since he was tiny.
The other female, when she gets in the litter box, after she has done her thing, tries to cover up the offensive substance by scraping the sides of the box. She never successfully covers the crap, and she always looks back to survey the “job” she has done (she must realize that she has not covered the poop). She has done this since she was a baby.
All three of them love to chase the little laser dot from a laser pointer every time we bring it out of the drawer.
My question is: Are cats blissfully unequipped with short-term memory that allows them to forever be surprised by a bird or a toy? Could that be why they are always satisfied with the exact same food and a bowl of water? This has been the subject of an ongoing debate between my mother and me.