Like people, My cats have different preferences. My first cat Tiro loved round things that would roll, like milk bottle rings. He would bring them to me to throw. My second cat Tayla loved things whizzed through the air for her to leap at. Max loved anything with a person on the other end of it. Magic loves having another cat to romp with. Lilly is my champion mouser, but if the mouse holds still she loses interest in it. She doesn't recognise them as prey, to her they're just mobile toys. She also loves playing hockey with a ping-pong ball in the empty bath tub. It rolls, skitters, and bounces, and doesn't go out of bounds. So she got the idea to take her mice in the bath tub to play with; they can't get away. I must admit, it does make it easier to clean up the dead bodies!
It is rare to hear house cat still catch mice. I thought they have gone too lazy to do anything about the mice. Your cat drown mice in the bathtub, that is the first time I heard of it.
One of my cats actually killed a mouse about a year ago. I didn't even know we had a mouse. He is the predator of the house though. He finds any escaped crickets
our tonkinese has a favorite toy type, strips of vinyl flooring. He is actually the type that likes any small floppy things, like the milk bottle rings Karen was talking about above. But he loves thin strips of vinyl flooring. He actually comes and waits if he sees one of us cutting it. And he puts everything in the water bowl. Or my shoes. Sometimes both, in the water bowl, then out, then in my shoes, wet. He is a very odd cat.
Vinyl flooring! That's a first! He sounds like quite a character. When I find a dead mouse I theorise it died of a heart attack from being played with by a cat. I don't think they know how to kill them! One time, I think Lilly accidently caught one in a vein with a fang, because the next morning I found blood all over the bath tub, along with a good size dead mouse. At least her habit of taking her "toys" in the bath tub made clean-up easier.
My cats favorite toy is a bottle cap, but he always loses it by pushing it underneath my bedroom door and I find it by stepping on it. I have to start wondering if he's just pulling pranks on me.
(04-29-2012, 02:15 AM)lhins Wrote: My cats favorite toy is a bottle cap, but he always loses it by pushing it underneath my bedroom door and I find it by stepping on it. I have to start wondering if he's just pulling pranks on me.
I think they know where they are putting them sometimes. That boy puts things in my shoes. And not one pair, any of them. If I buy a new pair, the next day, there is something in them. And noone else's shoes in the house. He has a purpose. I have absolutely no idea what it is, but he has a purpose.
Karen I would think your right about the mouse, I have no idea how how killed it, he was playing with it and I thought it was one of the fake stuffed catnip little mouse toys we have, until we stopped and looked closer. (READ: until my wife screamed )
It sounds like the cats are intentionally playing with you by putting toys at certain places such as in your shoes or under the bedroom floor.
You should be glad the cats actually want to play with you. :p
Cats traditionally are known for killing mice and rats. Many people used to keep cats for that purpose alone. The cats used to play the mice as toys before ate them. it is no longer common these days. It is just that too many cats today are too spoiled to bother with rats or mice.
Some cats (usually female, but not always) will bring you "prey" they have caught. Instinctively, mother cat will bring her kittens prey; first dead to introduce them to solid food, and later live to teach them to hunt. Indoor cats don't know how to hunt, or that small animals are food, but sometimes the instinct kicks in anyway. The "prey" they hunt is toys, so that's what they bring you. Either they're proud of their hunting prowes, or they think you need food. I have a friend who has a cat that brings in live birds from the back yard and leaves them for her to find. By then shock has worn off and the bird is flying around the house and she has to catch it to get it back outside. So when your cat leaves toys in his food dish, He's bringing "prey" back to his "den", and when he leaves toys in your shoes, he's leaving you "food" where he knows you will find it. My cats love those real fur mice and will do the whole toss-it-in-the-air-and-kill-it routine with them. Because I live in a 100+ year old house that mice get into, I buy the cats the brightly colored ones so I can tell at a glance just WHAT they're playing with!
I don't have any photos right now sadly =\ However my cats love anything that sounds like paper haha. I guess that makes sense though. We recently bought them some little mice with cat nip in them. They literally tear these things to shreds! It's so cute watching them violently rip these things apart for some reason.
(05-18-2012, 01:56 AM)Ram8349 Wrote: Cats like to rip things apart sometimes. You have a lot of cleaning to do every time they do it. Just better watch them not to rip your couch apart.
Haha yeah no kidding. They like to claw at the legs of the table and the cupbard thing we have in the hall that have our towels in it. Shreds of wood laying around them. It's quite annoying. But it lasts so much longer than a scratching post XD
My cat isn't particular on a favorite toy. He likes anything he can bat around the floor. Though he does have a preference for the kids toys if they are that stretchy rubbery material. If he gets ahold of one of those, he will play with it for hours. It usually ends up underneath the stove or fridge and he will try to squeeze his fat self under to get at it. I don't know, maybe it has a certain smell or something.
A long string of leather is my cats' current favorite. They also love bunched up balls of paper and the plastic ring off of milk jugs and other similar packaging. Within an hour, my cats destroy most of the store-bought toys, especially fabric based one and those with faux feathers. I figure those are too dangerous so I gave up buying them.
My fiancee's oldest cat, Max, loves to play with a small ball that he actually plays fetch with. He kicks it to us, he kick it back, he chases it and then carries it in his mouth and kicks it to us. He's simply amazing.
Our other cat, Batman, likes to play with his toy fish and he has a lot of fun chasing it when we throw it. Unfortunately, his other favorite toy is Max, who he consistently bothers.
Oh, and Max loves his pet squirrel (we call it Ryder) and he always has to sleep with it.
