That's very interesting, because that's how Heidi wants to play
with string too.  When we first got the two of them, I would
toss a string for Heidi and she would grab it and head off for
the next room -- and Will would chase the trailing end of the
string.

We hoomins loved to see that, but Heidi didn't like it.  Having
Will chase her made her nervous and she would abandon the
string.  Will, bless his heart, instead of taking advantage of
her nervousness to tease her, trained himself not give in to the
temptation of that trailing end.  He is such a complete
gentlecat.  Now Heidi gets to drag the string around without
interference.

I always make sure to have a second string handy, and after
taking a moment to admire Will's self-control as he stares at
that trailing end but doesn't chase it, I pull out the second
string and reward him with some string play of his own.

Spotty is a new addition. She joined us pretty much like Little Bit.
She started coming around to eat at the outside foodbowl earlier this
year as a skinny pregnant youngster. I'm pretty sure she had a
so-called family somewhere, since she was friendly and not all that
skittish. She also had an abcessed wound on one leg, which I had TED
check out.

She had her litter somewhere across the street to the north of me. She
still came once a day to eat, but I didn't see much of her for a
while. Once they were big enough she decided to move them closer to
the food, so she brought them to my patio. Unfortunately, a
thunderstorm hit that night, so I was outside in pouring rain rounding
up wet, VERY scared and skittish kittens to bring them inside where it
was dry. (LB and Sammy HATED her and her kits at first, and LB still
can just barely tolerate her). Of course the plan was to just let them
ride out the storm, which changed to finding the owners, which of
course evolved to finding new homes, etc etc. Well I found homes for
the kittens (Dr Haney kept two himself, and had a client who had just
lost her long-time companion and was in the market for a kitten.) One
of the guys at work had always had cats, but was currently living in a
"No Pet" apartment. He had already decided to move and get a cat
before he heard about Spotty and her babies, and he ended up taking
the ony girl baby to live at his sister's until he moved. He doesn't
work with me anymore, but last I heard he had moved and Cali was
training him to be a proper cat slave.

Anyway, to make a long story shorter, no one wanted Spotty (and the
truth is after the first week or so I didn't try very hard). Once Dr
Haney gave her a clean bill of health and she'd been spayed and
chipped she moved in with us. She's a real sweet cat, probably just
over a year old and still pretty much a kitten herself. So far she has
absoultely no interest in going back to the OUT, she'll stand in an
open door and look, but that's about it.