Blog Bit: Stuff My Cats Do (Part Two)

Loki plays fetch. 

At first, I genuinely thought it was a fluke.  What self-respecting feline, after all, would play with humans as a simple-minded dog might?  But then, Loki isn't exactly a self-respecting feline.

She's pretty much half dog and half skunk.

Thankfully, though, that "half skunk" part is diminishing, as we recently changed the cats' dry food to an indoor variety.  Up until about two weeks ago, I swear, that animal smelled like the devil's feet.  The odors coming out of her were otherworldly.  She farted when she got excited...when she was startled...when Ross came home (she loves him)...when she was picked up...so, pretty much, she farted dozens of times daily.

Ick.

But about that dog half...

Two weeks ago, when I was in the kitchen baking (unusual for me), I noticed that Loki had gotten yet another one of my hair elastics (I practially buy a new package every month, thanks to her) and was playing with it noisily on the floor.  A little frustrated at her claws tap-tap-tapping on the floor, I picked the thing up and tossed it into the basement.  She shot after it.  Then I returned to the counter.  I turned around, and she had already flown back up the stairs and deposited the elastic at my feet.



Loki with her preferred human companion.

Freak, I thought, and kicked it back downstairs.  Down and back, like a rocket.  I abandoned my baking and kept throwing the elastic.  We went back and forth maybe nine or ten times before she flopped down on the floor, tired.

That was cute, and kind of creepy, I mused.  Cats do strange things all the time; it's part of their nature to be spontaneous in the most inconvenient and odd ways.  Like the time I saw Thor puff for no reason and start to dance sideways.  Or the time he licked the shower walls for, like, an hour.  Or when the house is perfectly silent, and they leap to their feet out of a dead sleep and fly through the kitchen like furry meteors after each other.

The next day, I was making dinner and listening to an old radio program and there she was again, begging to play.  She even danced around like dogs do when they realize they're about to get some attention.  I threw the elastic and ignored her, but she added another rule to the game.  I was no longer allowed to ignore her, as she kept nuzzling against my feet and legs until I played.  This was a clearly new tactic; Loki is extremely affectionate, but she is not a leg nuzzler!  Perhaps she had seen Thor employ this clever strategy in order to snag a piece of ham or glob of tuna from me while I was cooking!  She was perhaps less simple than we had originally guessed.

Anyway, long story short, Loki and I have played fetch maybe seven or eight times in the past two weeks.  She's particular that we play with the elastics; even her small mouse toy won't make it back up the stairs with her.  And they have to be thrown down the stairs.  If I throw them into the other room, she won't bring them back to me.

So, fetch.  On her own terms.  I guess she's still a cat after all.