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I take a pipe cleaner and quickly run it along the ground to get her attention. Then I lift it up in the air very close to her head. She then leaps in the air and does ridiculous things like a back flip with a twist. She has jumped as high as 4 feet in the air! She will do it for hours if I let her.
What a great idea Kittygal...I'll have to try that...my little black one accompanies me while I sew and she loves sitting on the patterns as I'm laying them out...quietly pulling an edge in her mouth until she can jump on the floor, dragging the flimsy paper pattern with her..quite annoying if part of it is pinned down...I'll have to try the pipecleaners...have a couple downstairs right now!
Quote:
Originally posted by kittygal82:
I take a pipe cleaner and quickly run it along the ground to get her attention. Then I lift it up in the air very close to her head. She then leaps in the air and does ridiculous things like a back flip with a twist. She has jumped as high as 4 feet in the air! She will do it for hours if I let her.
Highly recommended! We first discovered this phenomenon about 15 years ago. My good ol' cat Huckle was reaching, up to his shoulder, fishing around for something that had gone underneath the couch. I asked my dad what he was doing. He glanced up from his crossword puzzle and said matter-of-factly, "Oh, he's just trying to get his black snake."
I laughed and said, "His WHAT?" Dad reached under the couch, found the toy, held it up for me to see, and said, "This. His Black Snake."
It was a black pipe cleaner from the stash I'd had for a school project--not the plain/straight kind, but the fluffier kind where the fuzz is trimmed in a wavy pattern to have thick and thin parts. I had twisted it into a circle, making sure to affix the wire ends in such a way that the cat's mouth wouldn't get stabbed, and then wadded it up. And so at our house began the "Black Snake" era. There were 3 or 4 of them. The cats LOVED them.
Some time later, when I was in college at Texas A&M University, I wrapped everyone's Christmas gifts in maroon A&M-logo paper. I used cotton balls and green pipe cleaners to make the gift-toppers, since the Aggies had made it to the Cotton Bowl. Needless to say, the remaining pipe cleaners were destined to become Green Snakes, replacing the black ones which had long since gone to Black Snake Afterlife (under the refrigerator).
They are inexpensive toys to make, they are easy to mail, they travel well, it's no great loss if one gets away from you, and I have YET to find a cat that does not go crazy over one of these "Snakes."
My 10 mouth old yellow tabby is very active. Sometimes when I am at the computer working, he decides it is """PLAYTIME""". He wears a collar and one day I twisted one end of a pipe cleaner around his collar and brought the rest up so it looked like an antenne. That kept him busy playing while I was able to continue working, although I must admit I spent more time watching him "PLAY" when I should have been working. I don't think I could survive without my two cats, they are great listeners and never talk back...what more could you ask for.....
That is so cute! You could try a laser pointer... I've heard it is great exercise!