Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 477

Advice – March 2013

Dear Sparkle,

One of my favorite games involves stalking and (eventually) attacking. It is played using my tunnel, with me at one end and my human wiggling her fingers at the other end. But she always ends the game before I even have a chance to attack! She is full of excuses, like she doesn’t have all day, her knees hurt, and a variety of other lame complaints. I know the truth, though — she is merely lazy and uncooperative. She is always like this, with every game, not just the tunnel game — if I don’t hop to it and attack immediately she loses interest. Is there anything I can do to correct her bad behavior?

Signed,

Patient Pouncer

Dear Patient Pouncer,

This is such a common kitty complaint that I wonder if it isn’t hardwired into the human makeup. I think this laziness has something to do with humans shopping for food at the store instead of hunting it properly. They are so used to just grabbing things in bags that they no longer understand the timing, or even the concept, of capturing prey. This is really unfortunate, because when a human walks away in the middle of a kitty stalking game, it leaves the cat frustrated and more likely to act out or become ill tempered. Honestly, can you blame us?

All is not lost, however. There are ways to add some elements to your play that will keep your human more engaged… and maybe even make the game more fun for you! One thing your human needs to do is ditch the fingers. Hand play is almost always unsatisfactory for kitties and humans. If you do manage to attack the hand successfully, it will probably get scratched up, bleed and make your human speak in her loud voice. Human hands are really too fragile to be playthings, and I am not surprised your human ends the game before you have a chance to catch hers. Instead, she should dangle some fun, enticing thing at the end of the tunnel, like feathers or a mousie on a string. Now, that is what I call proper prey! It’s way more exciting to stalk, plus your human has to use some of her imagination to make the thing move like it is alive. Chances are you will be quicker to attack something that imitates real, live prey. I have taught my human to use Da Bird like that sometimes, when I am not in the mood to actually leap after it. Instead, she makes it crawl into hiding places, and I have to stalk it. A smaller toy, like a mousie on a string, is also fun because your human can make it fly into the tunnel, closer to you, but just out of your reach.

If these things don’t work and your human is still losing interest too soon, have her use the treat method of play. She should take something fun and tasty — I prefer freeze-dried chicken and turkey, but any small treat will do — and toss a couple of pieces into the tunnel where you have to go in and grab them. Talk about instant gratification! In any case, when a stalking session ends unsatisfactorily, i.e., where you don’t actually wind up catching anything — whether it is your human being lazy or too clumsy with the play — you should always get a treat thrown your way at the end. Catching the treat and consuming it helps ease any frustration you may feel. Getting dinner immediately afterwards helps too.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Sadly, There were No Smacky Paws of Doom

As some of you may recall, I won a, um, “felted spirally toy” from my pal Spitty, when my acronym SPOD (Smacky Paws of Doom) came in second in his poll. (And I want to mention that Mr. Puddy’s First Place entry, TTTP — Talk To The Paw — was awesome!) Anyhow, my prize arrived the other day!

It came with a note that read thusly: “Hi Sparkle, Here’s your prize… finally! We hope you have fun with it. Maybe you should share it with Binga and Boodie – you kow you want to! Heh-Heh, xoxo, Spitty”

Yeah, well, sharing is really sort of a foreign concept around here.

With Binga around, nokitty could get a paw in edgewise!

In an attempt to give me a “Binga-break,” my human pulled out the CatAmazing, which still had a few treats in it. The treats immediately took away Binga’s attention!

But then, look who shows up!

Yeah, with that face, I don’t think I wanted to get between her and that spirally toy. Well, thanks for the prize anyway, Spitty — I assume I will get to play with it eventually.

Incidentally, Binga cheats when she plays with the CatAmazing.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Sunday Catinee: Miracle Kitties (and a surprise)

Anakin is a happy, playful kitty with plush fur, a fluffy tail and a great personality. Oh, and he also happens to have no back legs or pelvis. He is truly a miracle kitty, as a) he was born this way and b) he was originally part of a feral colony. Yes, he somehow made it through the first weeks of his life as a feral kitten! He was caught and brought home to a family who has gone out of their way to give him an awesome life, and he has returned the favor by gracing them with his cheerful spirit and can-do attitude. Here is a video of him running and climbing — activities he enjoys as much as any other young cat:

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

Do you want to see how good Ani (as his humans call him) is? Watch him catch a fly! He’s so fast, you practically don’t know what happened until he is eating it.

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

There are other cats like Ani, who are missing either front or back legs and who don’t let that slow them down… but what about a cat that is missing both legs on one side of his body? You don’t see that often… but here is Caffrey, a British Persian who lost his left hind leg in an accident a decade ago — and then developed cancer in his front left leg. His human had faith that he would cope with just two legs, and she was right! Check out this video (unfortunately it is silent) — Caffrey is pretty spry for a 13-year-old guy, no matter how many legs he has, or hasn’t!

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

As you can see from my title, I have a surprise for you! This little guy is not a cat, but I thought you would enjoy him anyway. Meet Chris P. Bacon, a tiny piglet whose back legs are deformed. His human is teaching him to get around with a cart, but as you can see, right now he is perfectly happy to play without it.

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Photo Hunt: Miniscule

I do not like this week’s Photo Hunt theme. I am a small cat with big ideas! I do not like little things.

I also do not like posing with things I have already posed with, like these two miniscule Somalis. The little stuffed toy was a McDonald’s promotion from a few years ago, and the little charm is a gift from my famous Aby friend, Jake and his human. They are nice, but I think it shows a lack of imagination on my human’s behalf to use them in a photo session again. Seriously, the Somali toy has been in about five photo shoots!

I also hate miniscule boxes like this one! I like ginormous boxes with lots of room to make up games in! You can’t do anything with a box this small.

I look at miniscule boxes and laugh derisively!

Well, since this Photo Hunt post is either a) repeating themes or b) totally random, here is a photo that is both: a picture of Binga as a kitten! Yes, she really was this miniscule. And yes, you may have seen this photo before.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Valentine’s Day Disaster, Part 2

Even though my human’s boyfriend is on tour in Europe right now (he is currently in Spain), he did not forget Valentine’s Day. Some delivery human showed up in the afternoon with this bouquet of roses.

Since yesterday’s photo shoot did not turn out so well, my human wanted to get a photo of me posing with them. Except I did not want to look at the camera.

In fact, I found everything way more interesting than the stupid camera.

This time, replacing me with Binga did not work out too well.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Valentine’s Day Disaster

Remember the awesome, huge party I had on Valentine’s Day last year? Well, this year, all my human did was pull out one of the props from last year’s party. Can you tell I feel gypped?

Even worse, I was not allowed to chew on it. Not that this stopped me.

Can you believe I was pulled off the job and replaced? How insulting!

That decoration is lucky it survived!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Wordless Wednesday: Mmmm, Turkey Burger!

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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

In Case You Missed These…

My human made a couple of word graphics for my Facebook page and Pinterest account. So if you aren’t on either, you may have missed them. Here they are — feel free to share them if you want:

I will request more from my human occasionally, as I come up with ideas.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Not-Fat Tuesday

You know how everybody is talking about how overweight many cats are? Studies have shown that over half of all housekitties weigh too much! Well, we do not have that problem here. Binga and Boodie are both in a normal weight range for their size. They are actually pretty large cats in length and height, and they both weigh between 10 and 11 pounds. Sometimes Binga weighs a bit below 10. Boodie looks big, but she is actually mostly fluff — underneath it all, she is not much bigger than Binga is. On the other hand, my human tells me — frequently — that I am underweight and need to eat more! I actually like food and am often hungry — I just don’t like any food for very long, and my human has tried everything! My tests at the vet don’t indicate anything that might make me skinny, so it is something of a mystery.

Usually I get weighed on a used baby scale that is missing a part, but my human’s boyfriend has a scale for himself, and when I stepped on it, my human discovered it can weigh kitties too!

It said I weigh 5 pounds and 2 ounces. With all the pet obesity that is going around, I do not know why my human is complaining. I am happy and playful most of the time and I hear the camera puts on 10 pounds. So technically, that means I weigh 15 pounds, right? Maybe I need a diet!

By the way, if you are wondering what Binga and Boodie do to maintain healthy weights, my human only feeds them canned, grain-free food and they are strictly portion controlled. The amount of food they each eat is 5 ounces or less a day. And they do not get treats very often. Binga complains and tries to steal food sometimes (and believe me, she is never late for dinner!), but my human ignores her. I get treats whenever I want (and boy, is Binga jealous!), so maybe I should not complain about my human wanting me to weigh more!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Look What I Got (Finally!)

I have been waiting for this for weeks! And it finally came. I bet there are a number of you out there who know what it is.

My very own tote bag from Purina and Fancy Feast with my specially-designed logo. There was some sort of mailroom-type problem that kept me from getting mine until just a few days ago! But it was worth the wait.

Look at how big this tote bag is! It is way bigger than I am!

It’s so big that Binga fits inside, with room to spare! But judging from her expression, I don’t think I would want to be that close to her right now.

And for those of you who wondered about Boodie getting any box time on Saturday… she claimed this box as her own!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!