Herd your cats here

[eigen]

Another perennial favorite, started by tuxedo_cat in 2009:

I am opening this thread to invite others to post miscellaneous cat inquiries, if only to address the "cat gravity" phenomenon on the fora: the inexplicable power of cats to draw various threads inexorably towards discussion of them.  Even if we started by discussing grading rubrics or home mortgages.

So, my two questions of the day:  one of the things that makes Dangercat dangerous is . . . well, to put it kindly, her size.  She's almost ten, and I don't want her to suffer some of the health problems that will follow from this problem -- diabetes especially.  This is not a cat that would put up with a needle, so diabetes would be the end of her. 

Other than feeding her less, or feeding her that "diet" cat food -- neither of which has had any any effect -- what do people do?  I live in an apt. building, so having her get exercise outdoors is not a possibility.  Efforts to get her to play with me are largely ignored.  I could chase her with the water bottle, but that would seem kind of mean.

Second ques:  I did have one of those laser toys, and that was pretty good to get her moving, but it fell apart after a week.  Any type/brand the rest of you would like to recommend?

TCat

[Parasaurolophus]

The littlest cat now has nine tricks fully mastered. We've also been working on object discrimination for a couple of months now, and he can reliably pick out the toy mouse and the small tube of pencil crayons in forced choice situations, with vocal commands or hand signals, and he's not bad at picking out new objects which are introduced. I guess that's his tenth trick? I dunno, I think it still needs a little work before I can properly count it.

I need to think up some more things for him to do, though. I suppose I could work on jumping on command?

[citrine]

Agility, perhaps?

[Parasaurolophus]

Agility, perhaps?

Hmmm. Like, walking across a narrow ledge or making difficult jumps, that sort of thing? Could do. It shouldn't be too hard to shape his current behaviours in those directions.

[mamselle]

Cats have to be trained for agility?

I can't jump up to a counter 10 times my height from a standing squat.

Anytime they let us "train" them, you should be aware they're just humoring us, you know...

M.

[overthejordan]

Cats have to be trained for agility?

I can't jump up to a counter 10 times my height from a standing squat.

Anytime they let us "train" them, you should be aware they're just humoring us, you know...

M.

True. But we need humoring, don't we?

[mamselle]

I would imagine they think so, anyway...

;--}

M.

[the_geneticist]

You could train him to jump through a tiny hoop!  Or balance on a ball.

[FishProf]

One of the Thundercats just spent 5 minutes pushing against the screen in my office window, to no avail.  Then she went across the room to get a run at it.  Alas for her, I had shut the window in the interval (I had just been waiting for her to get out of the way).

She was very perplexed by the solidity of the glass.

[mamselle]

Poor kitty!

You thwarted her legitimate ambitions, you, you... FishProf, you!

M.

[happylittletrees]

Ah, springtime. The time of open windows bringing exciting outdoor smells and sounds! It's better than the fish tank for entertainment.

[the_geneticist]

We have company over and the cats are Most Displeased that doors are shut.  Sir Puck says he NEEDS to get into the guest room so he can sit at the window and watch for the squirrel. 

[Thursday's_Child]

This morning, younger cat, who is now formally out of kitten-hood, topped a protracted and highly athletic pursuit of a fly with a leap from the bathroom windowsill to the top of the shower doors.  That's almost 6 feet, from a mostly sideways stance on the narrow sill & at a slight upward angle, to a 2.5 inch wide landing platform.  She not only nailed the landing, I'm pretty sure she did a 180^o twist in mid-air.  Only pretty sure, because all I saw was the flying blur immediately prior to looking up into a pair of huge golden eyes.

I'm reasonably sure that, in her mind, it was only the waterfall which deterred the ferocious predator from instantly pouncing on the helpless prey!

[drbrt]

I'm going on a two week work trip and my friend who used to cat sit is moving, so I had to hire a petsitter for Victoria and Gus. I'm leaving them canned food, but I don't think that will be enough to thaw their feelings about strangers. I got Victoria Gus about a year ago because she is a terrible only cat and anxious about people. I had hoped that Gus would help Victoria be a little braver. Instead, Victoria seems to have taught Gus to hide.

[mamselle]

Of course, the real question might be, what do they get up to when they hide???

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M.