Nature's cat toys

[mlycat]

Our male cat, Pixley, and his sister, Goshen, both love all the standards toys (especially the cat tickler-- Goshen will sneak into the house to go after it). However, they will play with ANYTHING!

Pixley likes to play with rose hips. Yes, rose hips! They're the seed bunches that develop on rose bushes if you don't cut all the flowers off when they're done blooming. When I go out and trim the rose bushes Pixley will follow me and wait. When I've thrown a few rose hips in the wheelbarrow he'll jump in and pick out the one he likes best. This is usually the size of a small mouse with stem extending 2 or 3 inches. He'll take it out on the patio and bat it around for hours. Goshen just looks at him like he's nuts but she gets a swipe in there periodically.

Goshen is even weirder. When she was about four months old she decided she wanted to play with a cactus I had planted in a pot. She actually grabbed the spines in her mouth (yes, I watched her do this!), ripped the cactus out of the pot and played with it. I thought she was going to stab herself, but she was fine until I could get over there and take it from her. She wasn't too happy with me. Periodically I catch her eyeing my other cactus and I tell her "NO!" She'd probably tear them out too if they weren't so large.

A few days ago I took a head of elephant garlic that had started to sprout and planted the cloves in several pots. The next thing I knew both of them were digging in the pots and playing with the cloves they'd dug out. Cat toys? Who needs to buy them (yeah, we do anyway...)? Our cats will play with anything in the yard!

P.S. Don't try pulling weeds in Goshen or Pixley's presence without expecting a lot of "help". Burmuda grass is one of their favorite things.

[Barbara]

Welcome at PT, Mlycat. No I've never seen this with my cats (although they help gardening on the balcony and smell the geraniums). But most of te stuff there is no food so it quickly is boring.
We are looking forward to pix of Goshen and Pixley with (or without) their toys.

[smokey the elder]

Welcome to Pet Talk! :)

My cats like to play soccer with chestnuts and acorns. TicTac likes to scratch the firewood.

[BastetsMum]

Bastet loves cobwebs... I don't know what her fascination is with them. She also likes dust bunnies. That is good I suppose there would be a few under the bed that would be big enough to eat her alive but she kills them good! If she gets outside, she decides that she needs a good roll in the dust or a scratch and sniff in the potplants - she also likes pegs.

[Cataholic]

What are pegs?:confused:

[All Creatures Great And Small]

Let me guess - pegs are clothespins, right? (I speak a little British, ha ha) My kitty likes to play with just about anything found lying on the floor - the other day I bought a rolled up rug and had to cut the plastic bands off of it, which I left on the office floor when I went to bed. The next morning, the rug in the living room was all bunched up at one end and near the scene of the crime, I found one of the 2 foot long plastic bands, so he apparently had a good old time in the night. I've seen him chase lint on the floor, for goodness sake. And one of his favorite things to chase and bite is his own tail:p :D :p !

[All Creatures Great And Small]

Originally posted by BastetsMum
If she gets outside, she decides that she needs a good roll in the dust or a scratch and sniff in the potplants - she also likes pegs.

Potplants? Is that legal in Brisbane? (J/K) And doesn't that drive you nuts when they have to roll in dirt? They must think they're horses! Anytime I take mine outside, I have to brush him off before I bring him back in - his black parts turn grey from all the dust and dirt:rolleyes:

[BastetsMum]

*laughs* I never thought of pot plants quite that way!

Pegs are clothespins.

As for rolling in the dirt - yes it does drive me nuts! - I brush her off as best I can then I bath her. Bastet wonders what all the fuss is about!

[wayne0214]

mlycat, welcome to Pet Talk Looking at the names of your furkids, if you were to get more of them to care for, perhaps you could name them, Avenal, Tagus, Poplar, and Delano!:D Just kidding with you. :) Although I plan to do some spring planting next year, if I am up to it, I will watch my outside furkids for their reaction to what I am putting in the ground.

........wayne

[mlycat]

Well Wayne, what can I say? They were named during a time period when we were spending FAR too much time driving up and down Highway 99. We seriously considered "Minkler" but thought we'd stick with podunk towns (with my apologies to anyone from Pixley, Goshen, or Minkler) in Tulare County. So how did you know where the names came from? We're currently living in Southern California and no one here gets the joke. It's probably beneath their catly dignity to give them such names but they don't seem to mind.

Good luck with your spring gardening. If you can keep the tails out of your face you've got it made!