When the sunlight flashes off of the flat crystal of my wristwatch, Thunder goes bonkers. He dashes around the room, eyes cast up to the ceiling, whimpering in agony. God, but he wants that light disk !!! When I am aware, and hear his plaintive cries, I do the only logical thing an owner of a cat CAN do.
I slowly move the reflection along the wall, until it’s in an area where he can get up on his hind legs, and stretch a paw to grab at it.
Then, of course, I make it dart away, torturing him further.
Wow… page two and nobody has mentioned this one yet.
We have a small dog (18 lbs) who likes to lie along the back of the sofa. We sit at opposite ends and take turns. Here’s how it goes:
Husband calls dog enthusiastically. Dog whips around to face husband and wags, tail in air.
Wife (at other end of sofa) blows on dog’s asshole.
Dog whips around (still on back of sofa) to give wife dirty look. Wife then says dog’s name in affectionate manner.
Dog wags, tail in air.
Husband blows on dog’s asshole.
Dog whips around…etc etc.
Man, we are an exciting couple. We call this “blowing the dog.” We tried it on the cat, who gave us the Look Of Death and promptly left.
Huh. I’ve tried only one or two of these but my favorite one’s not mentioned.
Wait until your cat’s cleaning himself and then pet the area he just licked. Sebastian’ll give me a dirty look and then lick the same spot again. I promptly wipe it down. After that, he’ll flatten his ears a bit and clean himself again. Once he does, he’ll glare at me as if daring me to do it again; I do.
I then move my hand as quick as I can to prevent its clawing.
I’ve done the sock trick, though I don’t like to encourage them to mess with our socks, so I haven’t repeated it often. Similar fun is to take a detached plastic-and-wire dryer hose (transparent if possible; they make toy versions for ferrets that are like this) and wait for a ferret to go in. Then pull the other end around quickly, and hold the ends together so you have a hoop with a ferret inside, who goes round and round and gets confused until they notice the seam. Alternately, try to get two ferrets to go in at once from opposite ends, and watch the reaction when they meet.
Our ferrets know they have bad footing on linoleum, so they tread gingerly, and don’t seem to like it much. My husband will occasionally spin them around like a top though, while they’re on their feet - their little feet splay out and they kind of skid.
They also like to attack the “thing under the blanket” (your hand, foot, etc.), so to keep two occupied, put one on the floor, throw a blanket on top, then put another ferret on top. Watch chaos ensue.
When I was a teenager, I clipped a windsock to the family cat’s collar. I was not prepared for the response, which was abject terror at something odd “following” her, and she ran up and down the stairs and all over the house trying to escape her pursuer until she finally cowered under the bed, staring at the windsock. That’s where I was able to catch up, and remove the windsock. I laughed but felt bad I’d scared her, and so I never did that again.
We also had a terrier who loved to play fetch; she had bad traction on linoleum too. Tossing a ball into the kitchen would result in the dog running madly after it, sliding, skidding sideways, and bumping into the cupboards at the end of the room (not hard).
Actualy at the wildlife rehab centre, I was told it has something to do with extraordinary poor eyesight and that the raccoon’s primary sense is touch. It’s really cute when you first meet the babies because they run up and knead your shoe like it’s bread dough. The water enhances the tactile sensation. So they drag toys to water too.
The sugar cube trick works great with ice cubes too. Baby coons loooove ice cubes because they are new, and cold and slippery and fun to lick. Great toys! When they melt in the water, the coon babies will sometimes throw royal tantrums. I had one that stomped around making angry snorting noises and looking for the Icicle Thief.
Because coons are smart and inquisitive, you can also piss 'em off royally with some cat toys. Gave the girl coon-baby a brass, wire ball that’s kind of like a spherical mini-birdcage that has a pompom toy and jingle-bell inside. She wanted that pompom toy (which of course doesn’t fit though the bars of the ball.)
Tried her left hand. Didn’t work. snort Tried her right hand. Didn’t work. snort Tried both hands, each reaching in from the opposite side, so each hand was pulling against the other (that’s right, the toy “was fighting back!”) SNORT! Grrr!
And so of course this also meant that her hands were stuck inside the brass ball because she refused to let go of her pompom prize. So she wrestled with the ball and disappeared under the couch.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! I peeked under the couch to see her furiously bashing the brass ball on the floor trying to break it open to free her hands and get that damned pompom!
Eventually she emerged, looking quite satisfied, bouncing the jingle-bell on her tongue. Never got the pompom out, but was happy enough with the bell.
NOTE: These baby coons were not pets! They were part of a wildlife foster-and-release program after their mom was hit by a car. Coons do not make good pets. They are exceptionally dirty and become very aggressive as adults.
My ex-SO used to play a game she called “Hoover” (as in the vaccuum cleaner). She would create a complex, winding trail of kibble though the living room, almost like an obstacle course. The cat loved it! His ears would be pricked up as he excitedly “tracked” each snack.
The problem though, was that he got a little too excited and practically ran the course, gobbling up each piece of kibble happily. So he’d eat too fast. One day he got to the end of the kibble trail, where my SO was standing, and promptly threw up at her feet.
If memory serves (always debatable), the sugar cubes were supplied one after another as the perplexed critter kept rinsing each one away in his bowl of water, convinced that he could eventually out-smart the sugar swiper. At some point he puts his wet hand in his mouth, tastes the sweet water, then quickly drinks down the whole bowl.
Very true. The only people I knew who kept racoons had adopted them all as orphans, some were injured and would not survive in the wild, but all were more than a handfull to take care of.
This thread gives me many many ideas on how to amuse the new cat, which we ended up calling Aries.
Our most fun pastime with our now 11 year old boxer is to get 4 toilet paper tubes and uncoil them, then wrap them around his, well…wrists. He walks like he has 4 casts. Sometimes he’ll flop down and try and pry them off.
I can’t wait to try the tape thing with Aries. We’ve only had her 2 weeks, and the first week and a half she was suffering from a very bad cold, and now she’s feeling better…and totally tormenting the dog. She will run up and smack him and then run away.
If you loosely tie a piece of ribbon around the torso of a kitty, they can’t walk. Or refuse to walk, hard to tell. They immediately lie down and begin trying to remove the ribbon.
Never tumble dry a kitty, even by accident. They do not like that.
I was drying some towells, and had just opened the dryer when the phone rang. An hour or so later, I finally remembered I needed to get the towells out, so I turned on the dryer to fluff them. Horrid noises and a dull thump alerted me to the fact that kitty had climbed in to sit on the warm towells (I guess). Poor kitty. (He was fine, just terrified for a bit.) ((His name was Verne))
