Toys Thursday and other Stuff

Hi Everyone! I am glad you all liked the Barney/Trixie pics - I keep hoping they will snuggle like that again (they will spend a couple minutes together but it usually ends up as a wrestling match - but that time they were napping for at least an hour and a half, if not longer).

So, today I would like to talk about some of the cats toys. They all have toys they love - Kirzon loves anything filled with a lot of nip - we have a heart from Baby Patches store nip and bones that is one of his favorites. Lola likes the laser pointer - and she gets to play with the green one so it is extra cool. Virgil has a few favorites - he is a young one after all. He loves Da Bird, milk bottle rings (the ring that holds the top on) and pompom balls. He loves to play fetch with the last two. Barney is a bit of an odd one - I don't really see him playing a ton with toys but he has a few favorites - his mousie from Gracie, things with nip in them (for licking mostly) and just anything he can bat around - be it an actual toy or something that is on the floor. Mostly he plays THoE, so really the toys in that case are his brothers and sisters, and of course he adores Da Bird. Gus likes his rattle weasles, the honeysuckle mousies (also from Baby Patches) and pipe cleaners, and Da Bird. For Stella it is pipe cleaners and springs and Da Bird. And Trixie, well, she loves a lot of toys - her favorite mousie from when she lived with Chrystal, any of the smaller pink toys (she does seem to prefer pink - it is weird), pipe cleaners and she is starting to like Da Bird a lot too. The problem is that there is a toy wrecker in the house. I had initially thought it was Gus, because he pulls the fuzz of the honeysuckle mousies, and he rips the feathers out of any toy (oh yeah, he loves feathers and will crunch them up - luckily he doesn't actually eat them). Every few days I find a completely destroyd pompom in the house (I have a picture below) and then the other day I noticed that the tail from Trixie's pink mousie is gone (it is also missing a lot of it's fur too). Now, the fur loss I kind of get - she carries it and plays with it a lot. But the tail - now that to me is the work of the toy wrecker. And I am not sure now who it is - my two suspects are Gus (still) and Trixie. I just am not sure. I kind of want to know because I would love to see how they get those pompoms so destroyed (and also I am of course curious). Poor Virgil loves them though, so I am always sad they are wrecked.  Luckily they come in big, inexpensive bags at the craft store.

So on to other stuff! Trixie is afraid of vanilla ice cream. I had some last night, put a tiny bit on my finger (it instantly melted) and showed it to her to let her try it - she leaned forward, smelled, it, got a bit on her nose , looked HORRIFIED, then started smacking my hand like it was attacking her. So I guess ice cream = no for Trixie.  It was the weirdest thing ever. And when I was feeding them a bit later she was still freaked out by my hand - it probably still had a vanilla smell.

Speaking of food the cutting back seems to be working. A few people asked why I am not just saving some food for later in the fridge and reheating. Well, see, I didn't want to cut them back too much, so I went from 1/2 can 2x a day to 1/3 can 2x a day - but distributed between all 7, so they actually get a bit less than 1/3. See, when you have 7 you get some pickiness. And it isn't always the same. Gus and Stella prefer the crunchy food - that is ok because it is grain free. And they do eat some of the wet on occasion. Most of them don't quite finish 1/3 themselves, so someone else usually comes and finishes it up - that way if someone is still hungry they have it as an option. Gus and Stella never finish, Barney only finishes sometimes, as do Trixie, Virgil and Lola. Kirzon will finish anything that no one else wants most of the time. So it works out well and there isn't a lot of waste like there was before. Plus I am giving them 2 different options, so they have a choice of flavor. Lola is the only one who gets less choice because of being separate, but with her tummy issues (which have returned) I am thinking she needs to go back to all dry for a little while because that seems to sit better with her.

Anyway, this is getting long and rambling - so now it is time for pictures! These are all brand new - like I just took them about 20 minutes ago new. They are mostly of the cats playing with one of the wand toys, but there is also a before and after of a wrecked pompom, a close up of Trixies poor, bald, tail-less mousie, and one of Barney looking out the patio door. All from this recent shoot - just different things.