Showing posts with label toys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toys. Show all posts

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The demise of the treat-dispensing-toy

Fairly recently, an admirer sent La Doof Kitton and El Gato some toys (really. Apparently there are people who like my pets. Even if Dawg is still not allowed to visit the houses of some relatives after nearly destroying them). There some of these toys are still around the house (under the fridge, in the toy basket, or hiding in the basement) but the treat ball didn't make it.

The treat ball was a fairly straightforward toy--a hollow ball with a hole in it. So you put treats/catnip/etc in the ball and as they bat it about, the good-things-inside fall out of the hole. Genius I tell you!

So, I broke out this shiny new treat ball and, when it came time for the kittehs' bedtime treats, I gave them each ONE and put the other stinky little bits of tasty bad-for-kitty-ness into the treat ball and set it on the floor (on the side of the baby gate that Dawg can NOT get to--Dawg also likes kitteh treats) and I went to bed.

I heard the hubbub of kittehs trying to get to treats for a while and then I heard the *thump, thump, thump, thumppity thump thump thumppity* of a treat ball bouncing down a flight of steps. And then I heard silence. And then I went to sleep.

When I got up in the morning, the ball was lying in 2 halves at the bottom of the stairs, sans treats. While that's not ideal, it was still forcing El Gato to exercise for her treat and it was fun (Okay, *I* thought it was fun. La Doof Kitton seemed to be enjoying himself. El Gato seemed to think that I should be beaten with sticks for making it harder to get to her treats) so I was game to keep doing this.

We repeated the "treats in the ball at night" several more times before I realized that I quit hearing the sound of kittehs trying to get to treats...apparently ONE of them (or both...but my money is on one--La Doof Kitton) figured out that taking the ball to the top of the stairs and shoving it down = ball in pieces and, YAY TREATS with less work.

So, the next day, I decided that I would put catnip, rather than treats in the ball. La Doof Kitton is mostly indifferent to catnip while El Gato is all for the reefer madness. and hits that bong pretty hard. I put a large pinch of catnip in the ball and put the ball in the library (Dawg doesn't like the library--the floor is lava) and watched El Gato sniff at it. A few minutes later, I heard a noise in the living room that sounded less than promising; I forgot that, as indifferent to catnip as La Doof Kitton is, Dawg is not. I don't think Dawg gets a 'rush' from it, I think she just likes eating El Gato's toys and she associates the smell with fun-to-eat kitteh toys.

I arrived in the living room to find El Gato, perched on the back of the couch looking VERY upset while Dawg lay under the couch (that's where she goes when she's chewing on things she oughtn't be chewing on) , surrounded by flakes of catnip and purple and green plastic bits.

So the treat ball didn't make it--the kitteh's are back to just having their bits of partially-digested-animal-by-product-meal (ew) placed in front of them at bedtime. And La Doof Kitton seems disappointed that he doesn't get to push things downstairs. And El Gato is quite content with the return to the status quo--and easier access to treats.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

And more grooming...

When I finished brushing El Gato, I'm always left with piles of gray kitteh fur. I rolled some of into a wee El Gato's gray kitteh fur sausage so it wouldn't blow into my computer's ventilation while I finished the brushing. La Doof Kitton thought that might be the new, coolest kitteh toy evah. He stole it, played with it, layed on it, rolled around on it and cuddled with it.

Then he tried to eat it.

(directions for making such a toy, if you want to risk the eating are here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Cat-Toys/
)
Pictures:


(and darn-it-all, the photographic evidence just got me in trouble. Because we just had a conversation that sounded something like this:

Mr. G: *looking over my shoulder* What's he got in those pictures?
Me: Uhm, a pile of El Gato hair
Mr. G: WHAT?
Me: He wanted to help with the brushing...I had rolled up El Gato's hair so it wouldn't blow away and he came and played with it
Mr. G: *reading blog-not-yet-posted* And he ate it?
Me: uhhh *desperately stalling* Look, something sparkly!
Mr. G: That only works on you.
Me: Oh, right. Well, he tried to eat it. I took most of it away when he started eating it. But he did run off with a wad of it and I couldn't find it anywhere--I guess he hid it somewhere.
Mr. G: Like in his stomach.
Me: Maybe.
Mr. G: And do you suppose that might explain why I've cleaned up puked up piles of cat hair every day for the last 3 days?
Me: Maybe.
Mr. G: You should just not tell me these things...
Me: I didn't tell you! I was keeping it secret and just putting it on the blog
Mr. G: *sounded a little incredulous* You don't think that counts as telling me?
Me: Well, both cats have refused to be brushed for the last 3 days so I'm fairly sure they're done eating and puking up hair for now
Mr. G: Well that's good. We'll just go back to the old system of them licking themselves, ingesting hair that way, and puking it up. It takes them longer that way to get a good sized pile of vomit together.

So, there you have it, rolled up bits of cat fur? not a good kitteh toy. ANd likely to lead to marital strife. I suppose that him cleaning up 3 days worth of kitteh vomit means its my turn to do the cat boxes.)

(ETA: we just found the 'toy'/furball. Or what's left of it. Hidden on a shelf in the library. I've no idea how much of it was ingested but I am officially not responsible for any future puking episodes.)

Saturday, April 4, 2009

La Doof Kitton and the wall hangings

The other night, La Doof Kitton came into the bedroom at some ungodly hour to mess with the hamper (yes, the same hamper in the previous post). You would think a hamper would be to mundane and large to be a kitteh toy but La Doof Kitton likes to claw at it and to play with the stringy-things that dangle from the edge of the liner. These activities are loud, which is why La Doof Kitton waits until the middle of the night to engage in them.

Well, Mr G., who is less tolerant of being awakened at ungodly hours than I am (which is saying a lot; I'm not especially tolerant) and who sleeps closer to the hamper (darn :-P), told La Doof Kitton to stop it (he didn't stop). Then he interfered with the noise-making activities (he didn't stop). Then, in a moment of frustration, Mr. G swung his pillow at La Doof Kitton and smacked La Doof Kitton with it (he stopped for a millisecond, then went back to noisy playing).

This would have just been a normal part of our night except, in swinging the pillow, Mr. G hit the wall scroll adorning that wall (it looks something like this). The scroll hangs from a nail and a wee piece of double-sided tape holds the dowel at the bottom firmly to the wall. Or it did, until a pillow hit it--then it hung by a nail and flopped around.
Flopping around isn't a big deal normally but, in an unsuccessful effort to muffle the kitteh noises, Mr. G had turned on a fan as white noise. The fan kept catching the scroll and we'd hear the 'thunk thunk....thunk thunk thunk....thunk thunk' of the dowel tapping against the wall.

We could have probably even managed to ignore the thunking noise but this was a new and exciting noise so La Doof Kitton lept from the top of the hamper and attempted to climb the wall scroll--this scroll has been there for years, he has never so much as noticed its existence. Now that the scroll was moving, it was the new bestest kitteh toy ever. La Doof Kitton stood on the bed and pawed at it to make it thunk louder. He stood on the floor and pawed at it to make it thunk. He jumped at it to climb it. He all around made a pest of himself to the point where Mr. G took the entire thing down and put it in his closet for the night. And then he, less than graciously, dumped La Doof Kitton outside the bedroom door and closed it.

The next morning, Mr. G had to re-hang the entire contraption. He adjusted and leveled and straightened everything while La Doof Kitton watched with interest. As soon as the double-sided-sticky-foam tape had affixed the scroll to the wall, he was no longer interested in the wall hanging.

That might be because in the moment where Mr. G had his hands full and set the tape on a dresser, La Doof Kitton snagged the roll and ran toward the basement. We saw it in his mouth as he headed downstairs and we didn't see it again for several days.

Once again, proof that our toys are better than their toys.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

I promise more tom-foolery in April

It's not that the kittehs aren't entertaining right now it's that I don't have time to write about it for the moment. Life gets sane again in April.

So a short bit...
last night, I made cat stuff. I started by making the scratchy seen here:
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/01/diy-project-recycled-cardboard-kitty-pad.html

Mine isn't quite that pretty but is quite adequate if I do say so myself.
Thus far, La Doof Kitton has walked up to it, smelled it, and set to work chewing on a piece that I cut unevenly and El Gato has glared at me for sprinkling 'her' catnip on it and refuses to touch it.

So I decided toys might be a better choice since I still had cardboard. I made the toys seen here:
http://www.marmaladepets.com/owners/download_ball.html

(copy paper boxes = thinner than normal cardboard = easier to cut w/ scissors but cut the slits narrower than the pattern shows. And now you know)

The cats were mostly indifferent. Then, suddenly, La Doof Kitton decided the ball one was the best ever. He made 3 laps of the house with it before skidding to a stop and dropping it in Dawg's water dish. For future reference, cardboard toys + water = broken. I'll make him another someday, right now, watching him walk up to the soggyness that I scooped out and left on the back doormat and poke it with a paw is a bit of schaudenfraud entertainment for me.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

A non-video

La Doof Kitton is fascinated by the bathroom sink. Whenever we enter the bathroom, he rushes in to sit on the counter and wait for the sink to be turned on.

Friday night, when I was taking a shower, La Doof Kitton came and waited by the sink. Very patiently. For 1/2 an hour. (he did, occasionally, attack his tail [his tail is named Scooter. La Doof Kitton isn't convinced that, on occasion, Scooter is merely a giant worm attacking La Doof Kitton's butt and living as a gray, fuzzy parasite], this kept him from dying of kitteh boredom).

At the end of the 1/2 hour, I grabbed the camera and turned on the faucet so I could record his amusing water activities and share them with the world. Or at least with all 4 readers of this blog.
I turned on the camera, turned on the faucet and...
Nothing.
ABSOLUTELY Nothing.
I even dripped water on his head (what can I say, sometimes I'm mean) and...basically nothing

So I'm uploading the nothing so you can see the nothing that proves how contrary kittehs can be. (there is no sound, don't adjust your volume)

click below to go to the video (sorry, I couldn't make it upload here):

Video Link

(And, OMG, the file is HUGE. This still has problems. I'm working on fixing it, don't know if I can. Apologizes all around.)
(aaaaannnnd, now it's working. Although it's still huge, sorry.)




Saturday, January 3, 2009

Once again, the forbidden objects are more interesting than the toys...

There are OODLES of cat toys in my house. Cat toys that are largely ignored in favor of non-toy items.

So, this morning, at 3:04 AM, when I was yanked from my blissful sleepyheadedness into the dary and tired world of "WTF time is it and why am I awake?" by a crash-thump-thump, I assumed that someone was playing with non-toys. Since Dawg was asleep by the bed and El Gato was curled up on the nightstand, the guilty party had to be La Doof Kitton.

This crash was too loud to be ignored (yes, sometimes, 3 am crashes are ignored because the damage is already done--I can put the books back on the shelf tomorrow and not have to leave the confines of my warm bed) so we headed in the general direction of the cacophony. I veered through the living room and Mr. G headed through the kitchen and we met next to the microwave cart (on which rest a blender, a toaster, and cat treats) which marks the line between kitchen and living room.

As I looked at La Doof Kitton sitting with a look of pure innocence on the coffee table (the more intensely disinterested and innocent he looks the greater his measure of guilt and destruction) I burst in to the sort of hysterical laughter that one is only capable of when grumpily awakened at 3 am as I asked "WHY is there a toaster in the middle of my living room floor?"

Being unable to answer that question, we returned the toaster to it's home, ignored the toast crumbs spread across the floor (we were hoping Dawg would get them in the morning but I believe vacuuming is in order. But not at 3 am), and dragged our sorry selves back to bed.

(Once in bed, La Doof Kitton came to snuggle. Mr. G suggested we pretend he was a toaster and nudge him off the edge and see if toast crumbs fell out...)

Thursday, January 1, 2009

The best toys in the world are the ones we don't let him have...

The pets got Christmas gifts.

Dawg is chewing on new bones; La Doof Kitton got oodles of various toys--he's been busy playing with the packaging (he'll get to the toys once I toss the packaging). He and El Gato have both been playing with El Gato's favorite, her pawbreakers.

(I have to interrupt myself for a minute to say how wonderful pawbreakers are. And no, they're not paying me to say this, although if someone from the company wants to pay me to say this again and/or send me a box of pawbreakers, I'd not complain *waving to people who wish to send me cash and toys*.
Pawbreakers are large gumball sized balls of pressed catnip. They are the ONLY 'toy' that can almost always convince El Gato to get off her plump behind and play. They are a 3-in-1 bit of kitteh heaven; 1 part catnip, 1 part treat [edible catnip, yay! And for the record, yes, Dawg eats these too, which gives her catnip-py fresh breath], 1 part toy [ball = toy]. They don't make the kittehs sick after eating (like cat grass does), they aren't insanely expensive when Dawg eats them ($3.50 a pop), and they don't stain the carpet. )


But, as always, La Doof Kitton's favorite toys remain those that he's not allowed to have.
When we got home, we found that a bit of the bathtub needed to be caulked. La Doof Kitton wished to help--which would be splendid if his idea of helping didn't involve putting a paw in wet caulk and otherwise making fur fly. La Doof Kitton was locked out of the bathroom while Mr. G caulked...and all was well until the job was finished and Mr. G said "obscenity obscenity La Doof Kitton!"

I immediately started looking for La Doof Kitton and eventually found him under the couch, where he was busy trying to put the lid from the caulk under the nearby bookcase. Apparently 30,00,000 toys don't suffice, he'd much rather have the caulk lid.

A few hours later, we gave him the ring from the milk carton. He played happily (again, much more valuable to him than the toys we BUY for him.) until he was done playing. At which point, he decided to booby trap his daddy's shoes. Apparently La Doof Kitton likes hearing "obscenity obscenity La Doof Kitton!" as Mr. G puts on his shoes and finds sharp plasticky bits poking into the bottom of the foot.



(I can plainly see the "huh, what do you mean I can't leave it here? I worked so hard to get it here! It'll be FUNNY" expression.)

Sunday, December 14, 2008

If you hide your toys TO well, you don't get them for a year...

Last year, for Christmas, the kittehs got home-made catnip toys (a felt mouse I sewed and filled with catnip and cotton).

Being kittehs, they took their toys and put them in inaccessible places...El Gato usually puts hers underneath a rug and lays on top of the rug pretending she doesn't know how to get to it. La Doof Kitton prefers to put his in boxes or bags and lay outside them, reaching one arm all the way in to tease the toy.

Apparently, last Christmas, La Doof Kitton put his toy in one of the gift bags I had out to transport gifts from here to there...because when I went to fill it this year, I found his catnip mouse, a pom pom and part of a ribbon. They've been packed up for the last year--maybe he won't hide them quite as well THIS year.
(he's off playing with them right now)