We’ve never before bought Christmas presents for our cats. We buy them toys, but not for particular occasions; we hand out new toys when the cats have destroyed or gotten bored with the previous ones. Until this year, we left town for Christmas, and the kitties spent the holidays in the loving care of their catsitter, Auntie Lynne. We always arrived home to find that Lynne had brought the cats a new toy or two to entertain them while we were away.
On Christmas Eve, while we were out for a walk (in the snow!) to pick up coffee beans for Christmas morning, we stopped in at our neighborhood pet store to pick up new toys for Sasha, Sergei and Lyra. We settled on four small toys: a 7″ catnip-filled fabric candy cane, a rattle-bellied, long-tailed suede mouse, an atomic bouncing ball, and a catnip-filled fur toy with feathered tail.
On Christmas day, after Paul and I had opened our presents, we passed out the new toys to the cats. This wasn’t the sort of handing out of presents that one does with people; rather, I tossed each toy across the floor or into the air, and let the cats play with the one that attracted them. Lyra batted and chased the little knobby ball, Sasha grabbed and wrestled the candy cane, and Sergei tossed the fur and feather toy into the air again and again. A few minutes later, I noticed Sergei chewing on his new toy. And there seemed to be a problem with its feathers. I picked up my camera…
What’s Sergei doing with his toy?
He’s caught — too late to prevent the defeathering.
Within 10 minutes of receiving it, Sergei had chewed three feathers off the tail of his toy. The remaining two feathers, while mangled, remain attached a day later. And Sergei loves that toy just as well with two feathers as with five.
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I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that we always buy the cats Christmas presents…and Santa leaves stuff in their stockings. We cut back this year, because last year it occurred to me as I wrapped presents that we freaking spent over $100 on them (granted one thing cost $65 and was needed, but still…)