The box is better

By Elizabeth Prata

My cat, Murray, is a smart cat. He is an active cat. he's a Turkish Angora, all white with golden eyes. Lithe, athletic, interested, and a bit standoffish, he is typical for his breed.

When we lost Bert, my other cat, he lost his playmate. He was a bit depressed, as I was, and it took a while to adjust to the new normal. I got some cat toys this summer for him to play with. He was immediately in love with the little furry mice with a bell inside. He bats it all around - and purposely swats it under the bookcase, then sits there and whines until I get up and use the stick to scoop it out.

Strangely and humorously, he was also immediately scared of the fishing rod with the ball on the end of the elastic string. He squeaks and ran away. he makes this cute squeaking sound when he meows sometimes. His nickname is Squeakers. He does it when he sees the fishing rod ball.

After a while he got used tot he fishing rod toy, since I use the stick part to  push out the mice he swats under the bookcase.

So I tried it. I poked it in a spot where he could reach and play with it, like so:

He was so cute playing with it! The scene was just as I'd envisioned. Happy kitty, playing with wonderful toy, as indulgent parent contentedly looks on.

OK, that lasted 5 minutes. I'm not joking.

Murray swatted the ball around on the end of the elastic, in increasingly frenetic actions. I thought that was because he was getting into it. What he wanted was the ball on the end of the string. There was a feather attached and a bell inside. All the things.

He finally figured out that when he hit the ball, it would keep moving. He could not get to the ball or the feather because it kept jumping around. Well, Murray put a stop to that pretty quick!

In the end, just stomped on the ball, which extended the elastic, and chewed on the string. Soon enough, sproingggg! The result, ta-da!

Toy: $3
Time played with: 5 min

Life with kitty! :) Next time I'll just give him the box.