Fetching Funyuns: How I Taught My Cat to Fetch

Being out of work and otherwise not interested in rushing back to CubicleWorld, I've found ways to distract myself. Just this week I've taught my cat to play fetch. Kind of.

It goes like this. At the beginning of the day, I move the couch, a chair and other assorted furniture to find the fetchable toys she has otherwise lost. She has literally lost 50 different catnip mice. I think I get a contact high just from having them around. I keep scratching behind my ear and licking.....uh....my bad habits. And I find myself constantly craving Funyuns!

So first I grab her balls. Uh. Toys, yeah toys. And I hide them between the couch cushions for gametime. When she eventually gets her five-times-a-day hankering for the Kitty Pot, she meanders over, her affection as transparent as Katie Couric in her Today Show days. I launch a mouse, ball, or that scary pig-with-a-bell toy (the last resort) to a random corner of the room. She cuts up my legs, arms, torso, or shoulders to fetch it. I think she's German because she goes from zero-to-60 in about 3 seconds.

She eventaully brings the toy back after doing that ridiculous leg-kicking thing to the poor stuffed mice. And because I have hardwood floors in my place these mice-pigs coast and slide and of course get lost. As soon as she loses a toy she does her Katie Couric-oh-my-God-I'm-sooooo-excited-to-see-you!! routine to get her next catnip filled treat. And,let's face it, I'm the Great Enabler.

As you can imagine this is a tiring ritual. It's not like I'm Captain Kitty, armed with the a great bag of cat toys. I've taken to trying to find the next great unintentional cat toy. Any cat owner knows that they love to abscond with the twist ties, caps to Poland Spring bottles and that plastic thing you remove to open the milk (Does that thing even have a name? Should we create a name?)

Well it's not like I gots me extra milk thingys hanging around the couch. And she sure as hell ain't getting my Funyuns. So I've needed to be creative and I think I might have come up with the perfect unintentional cat toy -- the pistachio nut. It's small and wobbly. It can make it's way across the living room in about 1.12 seconds. It provides the enterprising cat with the opportunity to hone her motor skills by pulling two shells apart. It contains and mmmm-so-salty treat inside for the sodium-loving feline. And they come in packages of a thousand. So when Pussy Katie comes calling, a simple launch of the lovable nut sends her scurrying for at least a minute. Times a thousand minutes. Perfect.

I quickly learned though that this is not the perfect solution. Occasionally she returns the nut, and has been known to place it among the unlaunched pistachio pile. Yeah, that's fun to place a hairy nut in your mouth. Maybe for some. Not for me, pal.

The biggest downside to the pistachio-as-pussy-toy? Injury potential. At 3:14 in the morning, I went to fetch a Poland Spring (hide the cap!!) because I had consumed 100 pistachio nuts (plus 2 previously sucked nuts) and was thirsty. Sonofabitch! I stepped on a random nut and cut my foot. That's a lot of fun in the middle of the night. And of course it's because of my bright idea.

So what's on tap today? I've learned my lesson. I'll be perfecting my resume (again) and proof reading outgoing cover letters 10 times. I'll be tossing the bag-o-nuts. But not the Funyuns. Mmmmm, artificial onion taste in a chemical-laden crunchy treat. I may never work again...