Dammit, now I feel I must train my cat better. Alice (the cat’s) favorite game is ignore the livid owner trying to teach you something. She’s very good at it. If I throw her something, she looks at me, looks at the object I’ve thrown, and then crawls into my lap to be pet. She’s a huge suck up. Which is endearing. But only marginally.
Oh, no, Jeoffry’s only about seven months old. I guess that puts him at risk to lose this skill when he turns one and realizes his destiny of being a Living Throw Pillow.
I had no idea that Fetching Cats were so common. The only one I’ve ever seen was a Self-Fetching Cat. She would stand at the top of the stairs with her stuffed animal in her mouth, drop it, chase it, and catch it. And repeat.
The Internet really does cater to every fetish imaginable.
Thought I’d throw in a picture of my lazy little throw pillow. She’s about 4 (we’re not really sure since she came from the SPCA). You may have to register at Imagestation if you aren’t already.
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288254957&congratulation_page=Y
I had a lilac Siamese who could fetch. Somewhere I have a photo of him with a ball in his mouth.
The cat’s name was Puppycat, simply because he had been abandoned at birth and raised by a mother dog with puppies. He thought he was a dog and didn’t have the aloofness that came with being a cat. And he could fetch and heel and go for walks on a leash.
I miss my Puppycat.
I knew a cat that loved that game too. I wonder what it is about those round things that attracts them?
My dog fetches cats.
I’ve had numerous fetching cats. Cigarette packs balled up into a compact, yet rustly orb, are the object of choice.
And here is the photographic proof! Squash goes through phases of favorite fetch objects. Currently it’s balled-up Hershey’s Kisses wrappers, but when these were taken, it was a plastic fork. Here he comes, returning it for another toss.
I was sitting in the recliner with a laprobe over my legs when he insisted on playing this particular time. I happened to have my camera with me, luckily. Squash is faithful about dropping it right in my lap. Then he waits, aquiver with expectation. If you ignore him, he’ll ram his tiny cold wet nose into your face, again and again till you submit. The laprobe offers crucial protection, since he launches himself after the toss with all his might, and those hind claws dig in something fierce!
When his human finally tires of the game, and nose-butts can’t change her mind, Squash manages to find another way to amuse himself.
My family used to have a cat that would even fetch sticks. It was so cute to see this cat trotting around with a stick hanging out of its mouth.
We currently have a cat who doesn’t so much fetch as hoard. At any given time Bilbo has a collection of half a dozen or so crow feathers arranged around his food dish. He’s also brought home two collars belonging to other cats - the one that had a tag was returned to its owner. Luckily the cat in question was alive and well, and had lost that collar months earlier. And more recently, it appears that someone in the neighbourhood is giving Bilbo toys. Twice now brightly coloured toy mice have been found in his water dish (all items have to be drowned first before they become part of the collection). I don’t think there’s much hope of him growing out of the habit as he’s almost seven and still shows no sign of becoming a furry throw pillow.
Face it, cats are just weird.
Well, when they’re taking their breaks from posing for Playcat, Emmy’s quite good at rolling over on command for a treat while Oscar can jump two feet in the air and do a half-twist trying to get a string.
For the most part, though, Oscar just likes to beat the crap out of Emmy and she takes it. They’re cute.
One of my older cats, Rugby, knows how to open the door to the living room from the garage - he takes his paws and twists the knob until the door opens. He’s a sweetheart and very cute.
Ava
Our cat Tybalt plays fetch. Whoda thunkit?
Well, he used to, anyway. And not just with anything.
The Big Bird puppet is his wrestling partner, see. Tybalt is an untamed creature of the jungle. Or something. Anyway, the way it works is, you put the puppet on, and Tybalt knows it’s playtime. He goes for Big Bird’s neck, kicks with his rear feet to eviscerate the puppet, and so on. Then you toss the puppet away and Tybalt chases it, tackles it, and kills it dead. Then he sits on it.
But for a while, for some reason, when you’d toss it, he’d go get it and bring it back to you. Cue more wrestling.
Don’t know why he stopped, but he’s back to the old game now.
My cat, Cobbius, started his fetch playing days with an inside out rubber glove he found in my workshop in the basement. He was small enough then that he had to hold his head way up and walk with his legs splayed out when he was carrying it. These days, Glovie is mostly a bedtime companion since he has gone on to playing with those fuzzy mice, which he can play fetch with for an ungodly amount of time.
His aunt, and best bud, Chester, has picked up playing fetch too, though she has a distinct preference for the pink and white mice. Her sister, Twinkie, will occasionally bring a mouse to me but then has no idea what to do. Poor Twinkie, she wants to play, but just doesn’t get it. 
Eats_Crayons wrote:
My kitty uses the toilet but doesn’t flush - think if we put them together for a weekend their talents would rub off on each other?
We got this cat when she was already an adult so we were initially unaware of her -ahem- special talent. I’ll never forget the look of surprise on my bro’s face when we both heard that tinkle coming from the bathroom when we thought no one was in there!
My tabby, Hanna, fetches too. She’s about a year and a half old. I have videos of it.
If I didn’t know what that was, I’d say the picture is utterly terrifying.
My husband’s cat fetches, preferably wads of paper. It’s our favorite party trick! She’ll bring us the grocery receipt (all three feet of it) if we don’t get it in the trash right away.
And every time we sweep under the TV armoire, we find about a half a dozen paper wads of various sizes.
Oh, aren’t fetching cats just the best?! I’ve had two. The first one, Stretch, would only fetch a pyramid shaped eraser that I received as a prize for good behavior while at the dentist (I was in grade school, and Stretch was the family cat). Stretch fetched that eraser until it darned near fell completely apart. The entire family tried, in vain, to get her to fetch mice, paper balls, anything - but no go. So my mom bought a large rubber ball and carved out as many little pyramids as she could. Stretch then happily resumed her game of fetch.
A few years ago, an old boyfriend gave me a kitten. One day while I was writing a paper a class, I tossed a paper ball toward the trash can and missed. Calvin ran over to it, batted it around for a bit, then brought it over to me and dropped it at my feet. I picked it up and tossed it across the room. Again, Calvin chased it, batted it around like a little soccer player, then brought it back to me again. From then on out, fetch has been his absolute favorite game. But crumpled up paper balls are the only thing he’ll fetch. Any time he hears paper being crumpled, his entire body goes on alert. Sometimes he’ll modify the game a little by stopping by his water dish and dropping the ball into the water. Then, he’ll fish out the soggy wad of paper, bring it to me, and wait for me to throw it against the wall, where, if thrown hard enough, it will stick. It’s always a good time to throw it up kinda high so he has to jump for it.
The biggest thing a cat ever fetched to me was a crocheted afghan. Dragged with head held high and to the side, front legs straddling the corner she’d seized, from my bedroom, through the living room, and into the kitchen where I sat, agog, at the table eating lunch. Fortunately, Tribble didn’t expect me to throw it for her.
In the spirit of Christmas, our little Siam fetches ornaments (off the trees) and brings them to us. If he wasn’t so damn cute…
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/psvaughan/detail?.dir=/My+Photos&.dnm=000_0006.jpg