We got Hermes, our youngest cat, because Midnight had died, Lotta was getting old, and Hestia, our youngest punk-rocker cat, needed someone to play with. So we got a young, playful kitten.
Hermes turned out to be TOO much of that – he’s an attention hog and too aggressive in his play. He and Hestia have played on occasion, but generally she seems to resent his constantly trying to get in on anything going on.
But Hermes is a big hit with human visitors because he’s outgoing and obviously interested and curious. He’s not exactly smart, but he is extremely clever and experiments with things.
So when our daughter brought home a helium balloon, he was fascinated by it. I shortened the string and attached something light at the end, just above his reach, so he had to jump for it. He’d do so, then chew on it. When he released it, it’d go back up, and he’d have to jump for it again. He played with it all night, and this kept him busy and not bothering the other cats.
The next morning, the balloon was on the floor, as latex helium balloons frequently are – they lose enough helium directly through pores in the skin to lose their lift. So I went out and bought him a mylar balloon. Mylar doesn’t have big pores, and a mylar balloon can keep its helium for weeks or months. I strategically shortened the string and added a zip tie at the end he could grab and chew on.
he loves it, and can play with it intermittently for hours. For several weeks all he did was jump for it and release it. He has now figured out, however, that he can drag it around. If he pulls it down far enough the balloon will be low enough that he can bring it through doorways and arches. Last night he brought it into our bedroom. Twice. He has taken it down the steps to the lower level once, but he lost his grip of it on the stairs, so that it sailed up and ended up beyond his reach – he might not do that again.
He has also gotten it caught twice now. I suspect this has been purely by chance so far – he wrapped it around the base of the Christmas tree, so that the balloon itself was sticking up from the tree, far short of the ceiling. This bnothered Lotta enough to get her to complain to us – lotta doesn’t like to see her sense of order violated. The other time he took it up onto the kitchen counter and got it stuck in the drawer handle. As I say, I think these were chance – but he learns from chance events, and will not doubt do this deliberately sometime soon.
Hermes also has a habit of dragging his “toys” to his food bowl and dropping them in. I’ve had to fish his jingle balls and mice out of the water bowl, and when he drops those colored feathers in the water the non-fast dye colors their drinking water. He frequently drags his sticks and string toys to his dry food bowl. I think the idea is that toys are fun and eating is fun, so combining them ought to be a LOT of fun. So far the balloon hasn’t shown up driftiong over the food bowls, although he has dragged it through the archway into the kitchen.
