It is a while since I have posted about our cats...

[rhythmaning]

Cats are funny, entertaining little animals. Our two cats have a few very entertaining little habits.

Despite my wife spoiling them rotten with toys, what they really enjoy playing with are… boot-laces. We noticed this because they would climb up the coats to reach the hook on which were hanging spare laces for my walking boots. After rescuing the laces from their sharp claws so often, we gave, and the cats now spend their time chasing up and down after boot-laces; often, cute-but-stupid will grab one end and shy-and-sensible the other, and they will indulge in a bit of feline tug-of-war.

The five year old in me exploits this for endless entertainment: I trail the boot-lace around SAS, and she follows, spinning around in her attempts to grab it. I repeat until she falls over, giddy… Cruel, perhaps, but very, very funny. But please don’t tell my wife…

SAS brings the boot-laces to us when we are sitting down: she has taught us to throw them, so she can chase after them, bring them back, and start all over again. Perhaps this is her way of getting back at me for making her giddy…

What boot-laces are to SAS, washing up is to CBS. He sits for ages watching me as I do the washing up. It isn’t the skill and dexterity I demonstrate as I pull cutlery from the suds that fascinates him; it is the green sponge.

When he was a kitten, he would wait until I had finished the washing up, and leap upon the washing up sponge, and tear it to shreds. We learnt quickly to hide the green sponge. Now, he sits there whilst I wash, keeping an eye on it. Occasionally, I forget to put the sponge away, and he makes a break for it, carrying the sponge in his mouth around the flat. Fortunately he doesn’t tear it up any more.

He also likes climbing. He climbs – or rather jumps – onto the tops of doors; and he jumps to the tops of the bedroom wardrobe. This last is particularly irritating, because generally the cats are kept out of the bedroom. CBS – though perhaps not so stupid – knows this; so he goes where we can’t reach him easily – on top of the wardrobe.

This is where his plan fails, dramatically, though: because there is a small box on the top of the wardrobe, which he cannot resist. He climbs into it every time. Being in a box, he is easy to get down from the heights. We have now made sure there is always a suitable box – the one in the pictures – on top of the wardrobe…

Comments

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Molly always did the string thing, but she never fell over, instead when she got bored with not catching whatever you were waving around she'd pounce on your hand instead. And boy could she move fast. She too had a thing about boxes and used to sleep at the side of my desk in the recycling box.

We had to hide elastic bands when Watson was alive, because he liked to chew them into little bits.

Holmes was afraid of everything. He had a habit of knocking things over with his tail and then spinning around with a crazed look convinced that he was under attack. He'd do something similar with rugs - pummel until he got his claws stuck, back off, panic when the evil rug followed him.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Oh, I missed the bit about CBS being obsessed by my wife's "scrunchies" and "bobbles" (that's what she says they are called - bands to hold her hair together...) - he chases them all over the place! And, for some reason, emery boards.

And both cats beat the hell out of my Indian carpets!

Crazy cats...