Playing with Cats

My daughter chose to play with cats for her science fair project. She wanted to know which they'd prefer, a string cat toy or a toy filled with catnip. What it allowed her to do is spend time playing with her cat (1 yo Jack, seen to the right, we adopted from FurKids) and my cat (15 yo Dodger adopted from Gwinnett AC years ago) and still be doing school work.

It wasn't quite the adventure as we had with Robert. Since she plays with the cats fairly regularly, though, it was an exercise in remembering to log what she did. She also had to remember to make sure she had her designated toys on hand when she did so. Simple enough in theory, but when you're doing most of the "real" experiments during the holiday and she's not very organized to begin with, a definite challenge too.

Her final day of experimenting happened at FurKids. I took her with her toys out to the shelter (we're already volunteers) and we spent time in the adult cat room.

She learned fairly quickly that you cannot get the cats riled up by playing with them and then take your attention off of them. They'll continue to play with the toy dangling in your hand whether you're playing or not. No harm done, just surprised her when one decided to make a leap for the string toy she'd had dangling in front of the cat's face. We always enjoy visiting and I usually get shots of some of the adoptables. The catch this time is the adoptables I was taking pictures of were busy playing with my daughter or the toys she brought. So they don't really show them off to their advantage. Maybe next time I'll be a bit more successful.