In which ways do you entertain your cat(s)?
When we moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina for a couple of years, we had four cats, and Fayetteville was not a sensible place to let your cat run wild.
I was working for Blue Buffalo pet foods at the time, so I spent a lot of time dealing with people in the pet industry, and I came across a series of three DVDs called "Cat Sitter 1," "Cat Sitter 2," and Cat Sitter 3."
These DVDs featured all sorts of critters. One of them had mostly pet store critters, like birds and mice. Another one was all birds, and a third featured squirrels, chipmunks, mice, and other rodents.
Since my wife and I both worked, they were alone in the apartment during the day, so we'd leave one of the DVDs on. They would loop, and continue playing throughout the day. More than once we came home to find all four cats lined up in front of the television, their heads following the movement of the critters on the screen.
If it was on, they would often ignore us in order to watch Cat TV. Two of them were lined up in front of it one weekend. Suddenly, both of their heads turned from the television to the window. There was a squirrel on the TV and a real squirrel outside the apartment, by the window. It was as if they were acknowledging that yes, that was the same thing.
That gave me the idea to buy squirrel food, to attract more of them near windows that were accessible to our cats. Of course, that brought birds as well, and an occasional mouse, so I mixed some bird food in.
Even today, I leave squirrel or bird food out by the windows, particularly an upstairs window that sits low to the floor because it's also a fire escape, with a stairs leading down. On the little platform, outside the window, I keep a couple of suet containers, and a rabbit food container, that I leave food in. This brings squirrels and birds, much to Ella's (the young one, less than one year old) delight.
A few nights ago, Ella began scratching rapidly on the window. There was a raccoon out there, and Ella was thrilled. The funny thing is that Ella acted every bit like she saw that raccoon as being the coolest thing in the world, and she wanted to go outdoors to play with her new friend, which probably wouldn't have gone well at all.
