A Mowsie story that I read recently reminded me of something I meant to write to you about. You must do this. If you think Mowsies are fun, well you gotta try this.

My cat, Amazing Grace, aka Mazie, is pretty unimpressed with catnip mice, and the run of the mill pet store stuff. She lived outdoors in her first few weeks of life, and this city stuff is just not her thing. Bored with catnip totally, but she will eat the silk tassels off corn on the cob until she hacks and has to take a break. Mazie thinks any and all flowers are her own personal salad bar, eats em any and all. She prowls the basement in search of any poor cricket that might be down there, you get the idea.

I have felt like I'm cheating her, keeping her indoors since she came to live with us. We live in town and it isn't a safe place for her to be out. But she's a brave little soul (or a dumb blonde my husband says) who isn't afraid of thunder, firecrackers, any of those things city slickers hate.

Since I know she longs to be outside, I've tried to make it up to her by buying any and every cat toy on the market. I have a huge stash that she looks at with disdain.

One day I bought a blue feather duster to dust mini blinds. It had real feathers, although they were an unnatural shade of blue. I put the sack of stuff from my shopping on the dining room table to unpack later. I heard all this rattling noise and I knew she was unpacking the sack. Usually she does this just to see what I have. If there are any pictures from the photo shop, she'll want to lick them, rubber bands and tags on clothes can be eaten, just a few of the ways she amuses herself. So I went to investigate.

She was working feverishly to get that feather duster out of the sack. So I just watched. She did get it out, and I realized she thought she had a "bird". Finally, something worthwhile here in the house she's thinking. She hurried away with it and proceeded to "kill" it. Jumped on it, walked away as if to ignore it, and sprung on it in a surprise attack. Over and over. It didn't lose too many feathers, I think she was just "playing" with it, working up to the big kill. Went on for hours. Finally, in exhaustion, she had to have that afternoon nap.

That night when my husband and I were almost asleep, we heard this tick, tick, tick sound on the stairs. I got up to check and saw Mazie carrying her "bluebird" up the stairs. The ticking sound was the handle hitting the wall on the way up.

Off and on she played with her bird for days. She'd put it in her bed, and all her favorite places. We'd find it upstairs or downstairs, always in new places. She even used it to express displeasure. Such as the time I was gone all day from early in the morning till late evening. When I got home it was on the throw rug just inside the door so I'd have to step on it or over it, as if to say "Where in the hell have you been?"

Until one morning when my husband George got up first and I heard him say, "Well, the bluebird is good and truly dead!" There were feathers everywhere, in all the rooms, and a huge pile at the bottom of the stairs where we'd see it first when we got up.

She later retrieved a few of the feathers from the wastebasket and stashed them in hiding places around the house, so I figured she wasn't quite ready to part with her bluebird. So I put a pile of the feathers in her toy box. Then began to find feathers all over the house, upstairs, in the basement, all over.

SO, I went off to the dollar store to buy another bird. Had to be a canary this time, they only had yellow feather dusters. She's been a little more reluctant to finally kill the canary. Still carries it up and down stairs and puts it in her bed. It's fun to see where it's going to be in the morning. And she still uses it to make a statement. If I let her food dish get low, she plunks the canary on it.

I gave my sister a canary for her cat Spencer and he growled and ran away with it..........and killed it within a half an hour. Feathers everywhere.

Just though I'd tell you, if you have a cat who doesn't care for ordinary cat toys, buy him/her a bluebird or a canary!

Copyright © Ann Davis
August 1, 2006