Laugh. Learn. Love cats.
Pierre: The red dot escaped from under the ottoman in the living room, and I’m on the job trying to catch him.
He’s slippery. Every time you think you’ve caught him….
… the red dot somehow gets away again.
A little help over here? I’m not tall enough to get him if he goes any higher!
Does the red dot get loose in your house?
Tomorrow is Pierre’s eleventh gotcha day. We published his gotcha story for his ninth gotcha day, and we are retelling it here today.
Once upon a time in June 2005, there was a litter of cats born on a boat, under a tarp. The mother cat didn’t know that it was nearly summer, and that’s when boats start to be used more often. She just saw a sheltered location for her kittens and took advantage of it.
The boat’s owner didn’t know about the kittens, and moved the trailer. By the time the boat’s owner discovered the kittens, the mother cat was nowhere to be found, and the kittens had to go to a local rescue group to be raised. Every kitten in the litter got nautical names, and when they were old enough, the whole litter went to a pet store adoption event.
A little gray tabby kitten, named Pier, was looking out of the cage at the pet store when his eyes locked with a strange woman’s eyes, and it was love at first sight. The woman hadn’t planned to bring home a kitten that day, but when it is love at first sight, you have to do something about it. She talked to the adoption volunteer, who happened to be the foster who had raised the gray tabby kitten, and little Pier came home that day. He was renamed Pierre.
He was kind of a timid little guy and spent a lot of his first week under the sofa, but quickly learned to come out for food and playtime.
(He still plays with that same Christmas mouse toy to this day, eleven years later!)
And pretty soon he was hanging out on the sofa like a big kid, showing off his spectacular kitten tummy.
He quickly showed a special talent for getting inside things.
Including getting into trouble.
He started to grow up, but he didn’t grow out of that tummy exhibitionism.
Or grow out of getting inside things.
And under things, too.
He may be a senior kitty, his reflexes are as fast as ever.
And let’s just say that he never has outgrown being just a little bit goofy.
So happy eleventh gotcha day, Pierre!
Thank you to all of our friends in the blgosphere for sharing his big day with us!
For much of the United States, the Memorial Day holiday weekend is the sign of the beginning of the summer season.
In some families, it is traditional to take flowers to the graves of their loved ones, and in other families, traditions involve taking advantage of the warm weather with cookouts or trips to the beach or other watering hole.
Whatever you do to celebrate, we hope you have a safe and happy holiday!
Our pampered, indoor cats two linked problems: obesity and boredom. The little tigers that are our housecats are biologically adapted to hunt for their small meals. Yet they’re living lives of luxury where they can nap on the sofa all day and then wander over to their bowl of all-you-can-eat kibble without making any more effort than walking across the room.
Is there any wonder over half of housecats today are overweight or obese?
A great way to stimulate your cat’s need to hunt and to also give your cat a little exercise while hunting their treats or kibble is using a puzzle feeder. It provides your cat both mental stimulation and exercise while doing something they have to do everyday: eat.
We don’t feed kibble at our house, but there are no kitties around here who will pass up treats. So when our I talked to our friends at Kruuse at Global Pet Expo about cat enrichment, I realized they got how enrichment and treat time could be put together. They offered to let us try some of their treat enrichment toys.
One things that really impressed me at Global Pet Expo was the Kruuse Catrine Catmosphere treat dispensing ball.
One thing you can’t tell from photos is how sturdy the ball is. My cats have actually split treat toys open in the past, so having one that is durable is a must. It’s also easy to adjust, with a little chrome collar that turns around the pink core insert that dispenses the treats. You can turn it so that it is wide open, allowing treats to fall out easily, or you can turn it to make the hole smaller so that your cat has to work harder to get the tasty stuff out. More work means more exercise, so it’s great that you can gradually build up to your cat playing for longer and longer lengths of time with it.
The unique design of the Catmosphere means that the pink core is actually open all the way down to the opening. Ashton could tell that the treats came out that way, and she tried digging them out with her paw at first. She’s the kind of cat who will try to get at the treats with the least effort necessary.
When the paw thing didn’t work out as well as she had hoped, she started to really bat it around. It’s hard to say whether being able to see the treats flying around inside the Catmosphere treat ball was an added attraction for her since she isn’t a very visual cat. She relies a lot on her other senses since her single eye tends to make her less interested in watching prey. But regular cats who are visual hunters can see the treats in there and that is an added incentive to bat it around.
One of the other great things about the Catmosphere is that Ashton will continue to play with it for a while after it is empty. This may be tied into her not actually looking through the clear side of the ball to see if it still has any goodies inside, but that’s five minutes of play and exercise she got that she wouldn’t have any other way. She seemed to really like the wobbling, uneven way it rolled around on the floor, so maybe that was what kept her attention so long once it wasn’t dispensing anything to eat. Either way, seeing a toy stimulate her to exercise when she is so difficult to get to play with so many other toys was great.
When I was talking to the folks from Kruuse at Global Pet Expo, they showed me the Catmosphere treat ball, then they said, “That’s really all we have for cats.” But I spotted something else in their booth that I thought would make a good enrichment toy for cats: a dog food puzzle.
I know there aren’t as many products out there for cats as there are for dogs, especially not as many engaging enrichment toys for food. So thinking outside the box helps a little bit. The mini dog maze is meant for small dogs who are roughly the size of cats to have to work to get their dog food or treats out of the maze. It doesn’t have any moving parts, and it’s made of a sturdy plastic that’s even dishwasher safe.
What happens when you toss some cat treats into a maze intended for dogs to chase their treats? Pierre thought it was fascinating. He spent a long time pushing the treats around in the grooves of the maze. 
The maze loops back on itself several times, making it fairly long, in cat maze length. Eventually, he got impatient and figured out he could fish the treats out mid-maze and flip them onto the floor for consumption. This process, of course, made his paws dirty.
Newton watched the whole process with interest.
When it was his turn, he dug around inside the maze with enthusiasm, dragging it around the floor while he fished out treats one by one. The maze has rubber feet, but they weren’t enough to keep it in place on the smooth tile of our floor when he started digging with both feet. It would probably stay in place better on carpet, but there wasn’t any harm in his moving it around as he played.
Both Newton and Pierre spent a long time with the maze, and I felt better about letting them have treats, knowing they were working some of the extra calories back off again and having fun at it.
When it comes down to it, exercise and activity are the best way to keep the extra weight off your cat, so having active cats who work for their treats (or kibble, if you feed it) is a great way to keep your cat healthy and happy.
FTC Disclosure: We received the Catrine Catmosphere and the Buster Mini Dog Maze from Kruuse in exchange for our honest review. The opinions in this review are my own and not influenced by any outsider. I receive no additional benefits for talking about the product or company.
