Captain and Stanley both LOVE interactive wand-style kitty toys. Captain,
in particular, goes nuts for the ones that look like a miniature
feather-duster attached to a long wand. He completely de-feathered the
first one I gave them by constantly playing, stalking, and fighting with
it.

So, as their birthday was last Friday, we bought a few more wand toys for
them (which will be doled out in sequence, so they're not all mauled to
bits at once). Two of the wand toys are the feather-duster style, and two
other wands are adorned with non-feather items that (I hope) will last a
bit longer.

The first toy to be pressed into service was one of the feather-wands. The
boys love it, of course. They can't get enough of chasing it. And when
Captain wants to play, he doesn't even wait for one of us to wave the toy
for him. He'll stalk it and "kill" it and carry it around by the bottom of
the featherduster. He looks for all the world like a leopard carrying his
kill by the nape of the neck, who's about to haul his prey up a tree. :o)

Last night, I was in our computer room on the second floor, when I heard a
bunch of bonking and clunking emanating from the living room downstairs.
Wondering what the cats had gotten into THIS time, I made my way down the
steps to see what was going on.

At first, I thought Captain was carrying his featherduster around by the
"nape" of its "neck", as he was walking all round the front of the living
room with his prize. But then when he turned to walk TOWARD me, I saw that
he wasn't holding it in his mouth.

Somehow, when he wrestled with the toy, he got the wand all the way
through the link on his collar that holds the ID tag. He was walking
around with the wand toy installed under his throat, like the pictures of
the St. Bernard dogs carrying their cask of brandy on their collar. The
bonking and clunking was being caused by the wand bumping into various
pieces of furniture as Captain walked past.

Keeping myself from laughing aloud at this sight quickly became a losing
battle. The >snorfle< became a "hee hee", which gave way to belly laughs
in short order. I couldn't help it.

An annoyed Captain proceeded to run away from me when I tried to pick him
up and disengage the wand toy from his collar. In the process, the handle
bonked and clunked against more furniture, which only inspired me to laugh
even more.  Finally, I got hold of him long enough to haul the toy clear
of his collar. By way of apology for laughing about his predicament, I had
a good chase session with him, and waved the toy all over creation so he
could stampede in pursuit of it.

But I wasn't laughing AT him. I was laughing WITH him. Honest. :o)

Donna