Fickle, fickle feline.

The other day, I bought the cat an actual toy: generally, I'm of the "Cats are like small children: they'd much rather play with common house-hold objects than items purchased specifically for them" school of thought, but she seemed infinitely unimpressed with the random bits of string and chain that had amused my old cat, so I figured what the hell and invested three bucks in The Hanged Mousie.  The official name for the toy is the Bounce-and-Squeak-Mouse, but that's kind of un-euphonious, so I considered the long history of animals being prosecuted for their crimes (I'm not kidding here: there are documented cases of rats being sentenced by ... judges with too much time on their hands, I guess) and the fact that it was basically rodent-on-a-rope and renamed it in honor of the figure from the Tarot.



As you can see from the photo, the initial reaction to The Handed Mousie was one of delight: Sylvie spent all day napping and trying to get the Hanged Mousie, napping and trying to get the Hanged Mousie.  But either she really takes failure badly, or the Hanged Mousie started channeling Satan during the night, because since then she's completely terrified of it.  Seriously, if I bounce it on its string to get it to squeak, she flees under the bed as if all the devils of hell were after her.

Cat psychologists:  what gives?

Fickle, fickle feline.

The other day, I bought the cat an actual toy: generally, I'm of the "Cats are like small children: they'd much rather play with common house-hold objects than items purchased specifically for them" school of thought, but she seemed infinitely unimpressed with the random bits of string and chain that had amused my old cat, so I figured what the hell and invested three bucks in The Hanged Mousie.  The official name for the toy is the Bounce-and-Squeak-Mouse, but that's kind of un-euphonious, so I considered the long history of animals being prosecuted for their crimes (I'm not kidding here: there are documented cases of rats being sentenced by ... judges with too much time on their hands, I guess) and the fact that it was basically rodent-on-a-rope and renamed it in honor of the figure from the Tarot.



As you can see from the photo, the initial reaction to The Hanged Mousie was one of delight: Sylvie spent all day napping and trying to get the Hanged Mousie, napping and trying to get the Hanged Mousie.  But either she really takes failure badly, or the Hanged Mousie started channeling Satan during the night, because since then she's completely terrified of it.  Seriously, if I bounce it on its string to get it to squeak, she flees under the bed as if all the devils of hell were after her.

Cat psychologists:  what gives?