On the New Kid and Wand Toys - An Update

gingersmom

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
8,028
Purraise
22
Well, it's been nearly 4 weeks since Max arrived and joined our household, and I don't think I have ever been quite so entertained by feline felicity ever before.

Max is a joyous boy, full to the brim with love and energy, and I thank my lucky stars that he's mine now.


My mornings have not changed much: Ginger greets me first with kitty kisses to my fingers, and the kits get treats after I brush my teeth before I head out the door.

The only real difference now is that Max will come into the bathroom with me after I've gotten my fill of Ginger kisses. He jumps onto the vanity and head butts me to pieces while I'm sitting on the throne. His purring grows and grows until it fills the room - it is our special morning time together, and now he demands it.


In the evenings, I am greeted by four funny little faces, and I am no longer allowed to have a quiet evening at home: Instead, we MUST have a play session, and it MUST last a MINIMUM of 45 minutes until Max is panting and Ferris is wild-eyed.

The favorite toys for these sessions are feather and/or mylar wand toys, and I'm developing wand toy shoulder already!
All four join in, but they are extremely considerate of each other. When one kit is batting and biting at a wand toy, the other three watch, ready to pounce when it is their turn.


Ferris' favorite is the mylar strips on the end of a wand - he goes crrrrrrazy for it. Penny's favorite is a long wand toy with very long, black feathers - they look like cormorant (sp) feathers, as they have a metallic green sheen to them - and mylar strips on the end.

Max's favorite is the feather duster type wand toy - short feathers that are fluffed out. He will leap for it over and over and over and jump higher and higher and higher, and when he brings it down, he'll growl and defend his "kill." It is the cutest thing!

Ginger has no apparent favorite wand toy. She's just really happy to be a part of it and to get to play once in a while, although she tends to be a spectator more than a player. I always make sure that she gets some play time in too, rather than alllowing the boys to hog all the fun.

When not napping, eating or playing with me, Max seeks out the other cats for companionship and playtime. Ferris and Max can generally be found wrapped about each other, rolling and thumping and bumping through the apartment as they wrestle each other and chew on each other. Nothing is sacred. If it's free and reachable, it gets munched on: legs, paws, ears, jaw, tail, you name it.

For the first couple of weeks, the other cats didn't realize that Max was all about having a rocking good time, and they were threatened by him. Now it appears that they have all figured it out, and are enjoying beating the heck out of each other. There has been zero bloodshed, so I think we are G2G.


On Monday and Thursday nights and all day Sunday, my roomie is home, and I'll simply hand him a wand and say PLAY. He is a lot less grouchy now that Max has come to live with us - the little stinker is SUCH a charmer!
So that will give me a little break, or else he'll wave a wand for two kitties and I'll wave a wand for two kitties and the six of us have a free-for-all, with the humans laughing their butts off as the kits go flying through the air after the feathers and/or shiny mylar.

The moggies, Ginger and Ferris, have seemingly decided that Bengal acrobatics looks like fun, so they have been performing longer leaps and higher jumps lately - it's Betsy's Flying Circus! I'm very proud of all four of them - and speaking of the four of them, it's time for me to go home and play with them!
 

sandtigress

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
May 26, 2005
Messages
2,597
Purraise
4
Location
Texas
Your place sounds like so much fun, can I come over?


But I'm so glad that Max and Ferris have hit it off so well, I wish my two would play like that!
 

siggav

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Mar 26, 2007
Messages
1,327
Purraise
22
Location
Scotland
The play routine sounds very familiar. Have you tried Da Bird with them yet? It helps with wand shoulder since the string is longer so you don't have to move as much to make it go up high and let the cats really get a good run around.

My only problem with the Da Bird toy is that it's a bit harder then to control exactly when Nikita is most likely to jump up and go after it so she crashed into things quite a lot for a while. Some of those looking quite painful (head right on the corner of a coffee table etc). She seems to have figured out the terrain a bit better now but when the mad play glee is on nothing stops her.

I just wish I could have more cats!
I quite envy you being able to watch them interact. Your household sounds absolutely brilliant. I'm so glad you got to have Max as your boy it sounds like he's fit right in and makes everyone smile, the older cats included


Has he woken you up yet by dragging wand toys into the bed and poking you in the face until you wake up? That was a daily routine for me for a while, it was like sheees! I can take a hint!
 

kai bengals

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 5, 2005
Messages
3,931
Purraise
17
Location
North Carolina
Betsy your posts about Max and how he's changed and evolved your household of cats make me smile! Teri and I are so happy YOU have Max now. I can think of no better place for him to be.
I hate to sound cliche' and sappy, but it seems like this is what fate had in store for him.
 

xocats

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Mar 26, 2005
Messages
20,608
Purraise
16
Originally Posted by GingersMom

The moggies, Ginger and Ferris, have seemingly decided that Bengal acrobatics looks like fun, so they have been performing longer leaps and higher jumps lately - it's Betsy's Flying Circus! I'm very proud of all four of them - and speaking of the four of them, it's time for me to go home and play with them!
I am feeling your joy.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #7

gingersmom

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
8,028
Purraise
22
Originally Posted by Siggav

Have you tried Da Bird with them yet?
No, but I do have a wand toy with a raffia tassle on it - it's another one that makes Ferris go completely nutso - that is on a string coming off the end of a wand, and the string scares me, because Ferris has a tendancy to wrap it around himself in his frenzy, and I'm paranoid that he'll get it wrapped around his throat just when I'm pulling the wand in the opposite direction. So that's lying unused, in a bureau drawer.


So that's one of the reasons I don't have Da Bird.
I have pretty much every other toy!


I did get Da Bee, and I loved the thin wire - that made the bee jump all around with no effort on my part, but Ferris killed it, and killed it HARD. It lasted a total of about 10 minutes over three very brief play sessions.

It also poked Ferris in the eye. Word of warning: Da Bee has short wires that hold the wings, and these are eye-gouging lethal. Please be very careful when playing with it with your cats.

Originally Posted by Siggav

Has he woken you up yet by dragging wand toys into the bed and poking you in the face until you wake up?
NO, thank goodness. The ones that get them the most riled up get kept put away. Max seems to want to actually kill and eat the feather duster toy tip, so I'm not taking any chances. Oh, and he DID eat a 6 inch strip of mylar from Penny's wand. I found this out because he threw it up on top of the kitchen cat condo.


So yeah, I'm not leaving any wand toys out.


I do have a Tiger Tamer toy hanging in the center of my office near the litter boxes, and that keeps Max amused on occasion. He is a really good boy, though, and other than singing a bit (to hear his really cool echo) in the bathroom at 4 am, he doesn't bother me at night in the least.
 

kalikat

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Feb 25, 2007
Messages
2,057
Purraise
1
Location
Sydney N.S.W
Your house sounds like fun. I only have 1 kitty, but she runs wild with our dogs. Her & the younger 1 take turns in egging each other on.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #9

gingersmom

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
8,028
Purraise
22
Originally Posted by Kai Bengals

Betsy your posts about Max and how he's changed and evolved your household of cats make me smile! Teri and I are so happy YOU have Max now. I can think of no better place for him to be.
I hate to sound cliche' and sappy, but it seems like this is what fate had in store for him.
Awwwww, thanks, Nial.


I really do believe that everything happens for a reason.
 

sarahp

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
15,841
Purraise
28
Location
Australia
Wow, it's amazing how much of a positive impact Max has made on your household - both with kitties and humans! That's so wonderful that they all play together, and that Ferris finally has the wrestle and snuggle friend that he needs


You know we need LOTS more pics (if you possibly have a camera that can catch anything more than the blur of the kits!).
 
Top