Even though cats don’t need a lot of fancy toys, there is some great satisfaction in buying fancy things for them.  Even more so when it’s a toy that can maintain kitty’s interest for longer than a few days (and doesn’t require batteries).  One cat toy that had retained its charm in our home is the cat tube.

I don’t know what else to call it.  It is a length of fabric-covered tube.  That’s it.

As I was scrolling back through the kitten’s baby album, I did find that at one point it had a little dangling fluff ball. Other than that, it has held up pretty well.

It also was clear that Anabel has always had a greater appreciation for this particular piece of equipment than her brother, Sally.

Currently, the cat tube is one of Anabel’s favorite games.  She will cry and holler, then dash off to hide out in the tube when you come looking for her. She will lay in wait and pounce out to swat at you, then dash back inside.  When she and Sally play, he will pounce on top of the tube, smashing it on top of his poor, helpless sister (who instigated the whole game in the first place).

The cardinal rule of cat toys is change it up.  You don’t have to really have that many things for them to play with as long as you move them around and switch them out from time to time.  For a while, the cat tube lived in the front room, blissfully forgotten by everyone except yours truly who seemed to be the only one living here who found it to be in the way.

One day, in great frustration, I tossed it back into the den (the cat’s playroom) and they took to it with a fresh novelty. Anabel has been very committed to the tube being part of her daily play routine ever since.

Another time, it found its way onto the futon (there is a great degree of rearranging that is necessitated when trying to vacuum the cat’s room).  Now it was Anabel’s favorite place to sleep! I couldn’t find her anywhere. I looked in all of the places and there was no sign of her until I noticed the little bit of white peaking out from the tube.

Even though I am consistently tickled by the cats playing in the tube, one of my most felicitous memories was when my friend and her two-year-old daughter came to visit.  Apparently, they make the same thing for baby humans too. It was particularly hilarious watching this small person trying to fit herself into the cat-sized version of a toy that she had at home and Anabel’s reaction to this person trying to play with her favorite toy.

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This morning while I was trying to get myself organized to start work, Sally came around looking for some attention.  Which of course meant that I had to stop whatever I was trying to start doing and give him some.  I scratched his chin a bit and when he was walking away, I grabbed the end of his tail and shook it.

There was something about the way the morning light was coming in from the windows that lit up all the dust that came flying out of his fluffy tail.  It was like shaking out a feather duster!  Of course, my first thought was bath time!  But I also realized that I hadn’t really thought about how much dust these kitties must pick up as they go through their days waving their fluffy tails around the house.

Mr. Man and I tend to only think about the messes that the cats make – cat hair on everything, cat food all over the floor by their bowls, the little bits of cardboard that they rip out of their cardboard cat scratchers…we never think about what they do to help clean up around here. I decided that today I would give the kitties credit for all the ways they help keep things clean.

Aside from their fluffy, feather duster-like tails, they also have very fluffy tummies that make excellent dry mops as they slide and roll around on the wood floors. You would think that they wouldn’t like chasing their toys around on the wood floors, where it is harder to get a grip. But the slipping and sliding is part of the fun.  Anabel has some moves when she is chasing after her ballerina mouse where she starts to slide, then sprawls out and spins around.  She winds up facing the opposite direction.  Sally prefers the belly-flop slide when he is playing catch with Mr. Man.  He chases after the toy mouse, sliding in to capture it.  Then he picks up his prize and returns it to his playmate.  Mr. Man can get the whole floor dusted just by varying where he throws the mouse!

Anabel and Sally also have that well-documented cat quality of not tolerating cluttered surfaces.  When we leave something laying around where it shouldn’t be, we aren’t surprised when we find it on the floor.  Many times, we find it because we step on it (ouch!). One of these days the cats will finally train us to put things back where they belong in the first place.

And perhaps one of the most under-appreciated ways that they help out with keeping things cleaned up around here is their paper-shredding talents.  Anabel is particularly concerned with potential identity theft and will regularly shred any papers she finds sitting out.  She was quite fanatical about it when she was a kitten; I have the scraps of book covers to prove it.  As she’s matured, she has become more selective about what she feels needs to be shredded, although she continues to have a big hang up about post-it notes.

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The most appealing cat bags come with a bit of tissue paper to shred, but the bag itself is always the true prize.

A friend recently brought me something in a brown, craft-paper bag with bunches of tissue fluffed on top.  Sally was so excited by his new bag that he couldn’t be bothered for me to remove the gift before he started in on his cat bag.  You see, it isn’t just about getting inside the bag, but pouncing on top of the bag and attacking the edges are also great ways to utilize a new cat bag according to Sally.

We were getting ready to head out, but Sally was enjoying himself so much that I couldn’t bear to take his new bag away.  I also didn’t dare leave him along with it; I could just imagine him getting one of the handles caught around his neck.  Not because I thought that he would hurt himself (it’s a paper bag, it’s going to tear), but because that is the sort of thing that Mr. Man would bust my chops for until his dying breath.  So, I tore the handles off and left Sally to enjoy his kitty-proofed cat bag.

Another time, another dear friend presented me with another craft-paper bag full of kitsch signature.  Again, I had to battle Sally to remove the items from the bag before he inserted himself into it.  A bit later, I came across this scene:

Why is Anabel staring at the bag?  What is that sticking out?  Oh, a Sally tail!  Aren’t they cute?

About ten minutes later, there is a commotion.  When I go to investigate, I find this:

Sally is pouncing ON the bag in which a different cat tail is sticking out the end of.

I see.

Sally is going to need a lesson on sharing his cat bag.  

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A little motorized butterfly cat toy!

My sister knows the frustration of gifts without batteries and she made sure to put batteries in it before it went under the tree.  She also noted that it came with a spare butterfly.  Which was a good thing because that first butterfly barely lasted a week.  I kept straightening out the wire and picking up little bits of pretend butterfly wings.  Once I found the whole contraption flipped over and another time, it was no less than three feet from where it had been.  Mr. Man found the whole thing shoved inside of the cat tunnel one morning.

Eventually, Mr. Man changed out the batteries and put on the spare butterfly.  Then he got on Amazon to see if he could find replacement butterflies.  Fortunately, he did, and they come in a six-pack!  The box says, “Recharge Papillons” which sounds so much more fun than “butterfly refills.”

The base of the toy has a little button to turn it on and off.  Les chatons have figured this out and will turn their toy on themselves when they are ready for playtime.  I’m impressed that the little motor has lasted as long as it has since it has run for hours at a time.  And especially because sometimes they will just grind that poor papillon into the carpet and then leave it stuck there.

Anabel really likes when her cat tunnel is lined up with the papillon.  She likes to shoot through the tube to preserve the element of surprise for her attacks upon the poor, motorized butterfly.  Sometimes she will charge back through the tube after she pounces, other times she leaps to the far end of the tube, turns, and zooms through again.

But by far, the most adorable part about watching Anabel and Sally play with this toy is the way that they take turns.  No, I am not exaggerating.  Yes, it is hilarious.  Sally will sit back and watch while Anabel takes a few passes at the poor thing.  Maybe 3-4 times.  Then she will take a few steps back and settle in to watch Sally go at it.  It’s kind-of like a kitten break dance battle.  They get their licks in, then sit back to let the other guy take a few swings at it.

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