Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Cheap Thrills


Cats often behave like children, I find. In particular, they will frequently find joy in the simplest things, such as the box a toy comes in, rather than in the toy itself. In this case, there has been delight over something very simple, quite cheap.

A friend gave me a circular pad that was in turn given to her, free of charge, at a pet-supply shop. This pad is not really thick; it is made of some plastic fibre, so I can’t imagine it is all that comfortable; moreover, it cannot be washed, so once the amount of cat-hair embedded in it is greater than the quantity of material, it will be thrown out.

Yet several of my cats enjoy the pad. Josie, in fact, could not wait until it was unwrapped before she found a fondness for it.


She has been the pad’s most dedicated fan so far. This does not mean that she has abandoned the new hammock, which is still being enjoyed extensively by her and Tucker. But the pad gives my Chubs a new cushion - albeit a thin one - on which to lie, and a new place in the house at which to recline. She even snoozes on it.


Tucker too has resorted to the pad more than once, and sometimes waits for his soft-food meals there. And even Cammie evidently likes how it feels. My Siamese guest-girl likes to lie on the pad and appear threatening to any other cat trying to get down the stairs. Except once in a while when she is feeling her oats, she is actually harmless, and I think merely enjoys feeling imposing.



We never know what will grab our cats’ fancy, and though the cheapest, most easily obtained toy, food or furniture is certainly not always the best, I’m beginning to suspect that the most expensive is often the least used.

6 comments:

  1. There's no figuring them out, really. :-) And you're right that the most expensive toy is often the least used!

    I know Derry went bananas for some little thing (plastic tab or some such) not long ago...All the toys the boys have in the house, and he goes for something that goes into recycle or the garbage.

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  2. mom says that she can buy all the beds in the world and we will sleep on the clean cat laundry :)

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  3. Does it make a crinkle sound? I wonder what the attraction is...oh never, we're talking cats. They like what they like.

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  4. Anything different and they like to make it their own. The other day there was a small leaf on the kitchen floor. He spent the next 10 minutes pouncing rolling and scatting it all over the floor. It was obviously much more fun than all his toys.

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  5. You have hit on our secret. No fancy toy designed by a human mind can surpass the grand design of the paper bag.
    MOL

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  6. Ralphie and Marty have a square version of the same and love it. I don't understand either but they are happy....
    Marty's Mom

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