Three years ago, while visiting the west coast, we spent some fun time at the San Francisco zoo. while strolling through their gift shop, on a whim, i spent $5 for a small and cute little finger puppet. it is a little mouse. the thing that made this a stupid purchase was because i was buying it with the intent to bring home for my cat. i guess in retrospect, it would've been even crazier to bring her a tee shirt that said, "my owner went to san francisco zoo and all i got was this t-shirt!" nevertheless, it is pretty insane to bring home a memento of a trip to your....CAT!
well, i'll tell you what. that was the best $5 i have ever spent! dusty LOVES, loves, loves that mouse, and three years later, it is still about the only toy she ever plays with on a daily basis. her only other favorite (out of a whole box assortment) is the rumpled up balls of no-win-lottery tickets that she chases around and actually retrieves them for us to "flick" across the room again. (funny, cause i've never been successful in teaching any of my dogs to retrieve/fetch, but this cat as well as our previous cat never were taught, and yet, they fetch and retrieve until you're really sick of playing it over and over.)
last night, about 5 minutes after i crawled in bed, i heard the cat's proud (and loud) announcement, "icaughtsomethingforyou; icaughtsomethingforyou. wait'll y'see this!" kind of a meow-cry! with that, she RAN upstairs, RAN through the hall, RAN into my bedroom, RAN up onto my bed..yowling the whole time...and proudly dropped her mouse in front of me. this morning i came out of the shower and there sitting waiting for me was "mouse." on mornings that i decide to sleep in, always waiting at the bedroom door for me when i wake, is "mouse" and proud miss dusty right nearby.
it's not the plushness or size that makes this toy so special for her cause i've since bought other little miscellaneous and similar toys, none of which she looks at after a few fetches. she just struts away in a typical cat-like, "fer-gedd-a-boud-it." do you think she really knows that this one is a mouse?? never having seen a mouse (thank God!), does she really think this is a real mouse?? who told her that cats like mice, anyway? where did this "imprint" come from? and why does she appear to enjoy so much the fact that i tell her over and over and over and over what a good girl she is for bringing me the same old "dead mouse" day after day?
i don't get it. but i AM glad that this well-spent five bucks, spent so many years ago, seems to have bought so much JOY for a furry little devotee.
Showing posts with label Pets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pets. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Pets
I was in the pet store yesterday to load up on food for the keets and canary. (i almost bought a 40 pound bag of cat litter too, but struggled to put it back and decided to wait for it to go on sale, since we have enough to last.) it's easy to spend a LOT of money in a pet store nowaday!
rudy, our singing-canary (who in the 8 years we've cared for him has blessed us only ONCE with the beautiful trill and warble they're known for!) is named after rudy valee, an old time famous singer who is probably an unknown to anyone younger than 60. our rudy confuses us because he is suddenly, over the past couple months, eating like a horse! in all his previous years he ate "like a bird," which was hardly-at-all! now, he sometimes even perches on his food cup as if he's guarding it with his little yellow life for fear those neighboring keets might escape and steal it from him. i'm not sure why, after all these years, he suddenly discovered he has an appetite.
and the keets, well...i'm just hoping that miss cloudy doesn't plan on laying any eggs! mr whitey has been "taking liberty" lately and i hate to break it to them, but i'm not about to be purchasing that huge, heavy wooden nesting box they would require if they happen to become in the family-way. it weighed a ton and wouldn't even fit inside the cage. so i may have to look into a teensy-tiny-keet-size chastity belt.
mr rudy used to have a mate named ruby, who had quite a fun personality, if you can believe that of little birds! she did lay some eggs, but they were not fertilized. (i guess singing is not the only thing that rudy doesn't do.) but providing a nest for ruby was a lot easier than providing a wooden box for cloudy. a tiny little wicker nest just attached inside her cage and she filled it with little bits of string. the keets however do not sit in a nest and they'd much prefer eating string than sitting on it. so it remains a mystery what may or may not happen next.
all of the above however, was not what i intended to post! (sometimes i get side-tracked. tee hee) while in the pet store i always wander back to where they have a few windows where you can see the cats who are up for adoption. typically and surprisingly, they are young cats, not kittens; and usually there will be 1 or 2 older cats. what amazed me yesterday was the PRICE to adopt one of their older cats! $90!!!!!! i squinted. was i reading it wrong? no WAY!
when my kids were young we got most of our pets from the animal welfare shelter and they were free, though the shelter hoped you'd at least give a donation if you could afford it. then when we adopted our present cat (then an 8 week old kitten) from the shelter just 5 years ago, there was a charge of $28. but, come on...$90, for an older cat? are you kidding me?! no special breed, just a nice old black cat, fully grown. it somehow doesn't seem right. i'd rather see someone go to the animal shelter and pay, rather than give a store that much money. plus, most people, i would think, would prefer a kitten to a grown cat anyway. so, why 90 bucks? i don't get it.
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