February 08th, 2024

Can you stand another story about these two scamps?  As you can see they have now taken possession of one of my laundry baskets.  Never know what a new day will bring :)  Life is not dull with these two around!

But today I speak of one of my new weekly tasks.  Now that Tim and I are kitty owners, once a week, I retrieve missing kitty toys.  It's not as if I have it marked on my calendar (kitty toy retrieval day) or anything.  But roughly once a week, I will either come into the room and find both cats laying down looking under things leading me to believe that there is something Under There and I'm praying that it's nothing alive.  Or Brysco and Wyatt come to me with their sweetie faces on and they keep gently patting me with their paws until I pay attention.  Once they have my full attention they lead me to wherever their lost toy is which is clearly requesting I  return the toy to them.  They are very smart are they not?

So at some point, every week, if you were standing outside looking in our windows (and why are you doing that by the way!!)  you might see the following tableau:

In this photo, Brysco is only sitting up because I am standing up.  Normally at this point there are two kitties and me, lying belly down on the floor peering under things with a flashlight and I have something to pull the toys out with.  In this particular case we are looking under the display cabinet and I'm using a telescoping back scratcher.  If it were something bigger like the sofa, I would be using my monopod, which also telescopes. Very handy tools!

The display cabinet is very large and heavy but not deep so the back scratcher work great!

It is not unusual to find a half  dozen (or more!) toys under this display case.  But other favourite places to find lost kitty toys is under the console cabinet, beds, sofas and Tim's desk.    When they give me the sad sweetiepie my-toy-is-lost face those are my first go to's.  But I have found things under the vanity in the bathroom, trapped behind the kitchen garbage can, and once even in the pantry which is odd because we keep that door closed and latched so I'm not sure how that one happened.    

We have found toys in closets, cabinets, laundry baskets and our shoes.  Is nothing sacred?  Nope.  Not with cats.   It is not unusual to see them walking around with a toy in their mouths.  It could be a toy mousie, or soft puff ball or, lately, one of their favourites are these plastic toy springs. They are wild for them!  And that is what I found under the display cabinet that day.

The boys and I are peering under both sides of the cabinet into the darkness.  I cast the flashlight beam to the left and to the right and eventually, aha!  There it is, back right corner.  Now I have to juggle the flashlight AND the backscratcher AND two excited kitties.  They know that I've nearly gotten their beloved toy and they are beside themselves!  And since they are literally right beside me, they want to "help". Read that as "get in the way".  So while I am attempting to fish out the spring,  I am also trying to avoid impaling either of them with the back scratcher.  Geez guys!  Give me a minute.

I'm sort of working blind, dark cabinet, dark shadowy under cabinet, two black cats whose fur is in my way once again. Usually it's just a tail but occasionally a paw and I'm peering underneath in a narrow about two inch high space and trying to manipulate everything AND see what I'm doing at the same time.  Absolutely ideal conditions for toy retrieval. (not)

Occasionally Wyatt mews encouragingly.  I translate that as "Awesome job Mom, you've almost got it now!"  

Looks easy enough, right.  I mean it's Right There!​

Despite all of my "help", eventually I coax the toy back out and return it to it's rightful owners and the boys frolic and frisk and play with it while I return to whatever I was doing before.  But I can guarantee you that by the end of the day that spring will have disappeared once again.

Recently under the console cabinet I found six springs and a mousie.  I threw them into the room for the boys to play with.  They just about lost their furry little minds with joy.  Less than two hours later,  they were wanting me to play with them so I went to get some of their favourites - the springs- to throw for them.  

I toss them into various corners of the room and they chase after them happily, batting them around and having a ball.  Wyatt prefers that I throw the springs to him, high n the air so he can jump up into the air after it.  Not sure why, but he just loves it.  And the crazier the jump required, the better he likes it.  Earlier today he leapt off a table to get a toy that I tossed and he landed on one of their play tubes.  He emerged triumphantly with the toy in his mouth as I rushed over asking....."are you ok?"  Yeah, he was fine and proud as he could be.

But on this day, I couldn't find a single toy spring.  I turned to them and said, "Guy!  Where are they?  I just found six of them for you!'  They shrugged their shoulders and basically said, "
We don't know!"  

Anyway, on toy retrieval day, I do that same thing, over and again, flashlight, kittyhelpers and either the monopod or the backscratcher, looking under things until it's all been returned to them and they are just so happyhappy once more.  

I honestly don't mind doing it.  It makes them happy, costs me nothing and honestly, it's a bit of exercise hauling my big old butt off the floor over and over again.   I'm sure I'm not the only kitty owner who does this though the only people I've ever heard mention it are related to me.

Tell me, do you do this too?

Those kittyboys :)