Suddenly, without warning, John Doe exclaimed (08-Sep-05 9:48 AM):
Juls wrote:


He's still kind of disturbed by the weasel, because it has big
fake eyes.


The disturbance is more likely because it is heavy and forceful.
If it were possible to make a very light and maybe smaller version
of that, it might work as a toy.

Kitty is doing pretty well with those golf ball size plastic balls
with a bell inside made by Hartz. If it continues for a long time,
I will report back. I am trying to encourage him, playing a little
soccer using them. At least he is not intimidated. Kitty soccer
between two or more cats with those things would be marvelous, but
very unlikely I guess. I wonder if a trainer could teach that.

Maybe not so unlikely. I remember an incident that happened many years
ago - 1986 I think - between my cat Mouse and my roomate's cat Cleo.

We lived in a farmhouse. I got up to go to work one morning, and I
found Mouse and Cleo in our very large, very empty living room (poor
college students, don'cha'know).

They were facing each other, about 10' apart. In between them was a
very scared, very unfortunate mouse. Curious as to what was going on, I
stayed out of sight, and watched.

After a moment or two, the poor mouse would dart in some direction. The
cat on that side of the 'court' would reach out, and bat the mouse back
into the middle. The mouse would cower, then dart, and the next cat
would bat it back. This went on for the 5 or 10 minutes I watched,
fascinated.

I finally had to leave for work, the cats were still playing tennis when
I left.

Now, I agree that it was a bit cruel for the mouse, but I didn't want to
discourage either cat from doing their job. We had enough mice already.

So, you might not be able to teach Kitty soccer, but perhaps you can
teach him tennis

jmc