The best cat toys are free

It’s an old and oft-repeated gag that someone buys an expensive toy for their cat (or kid, or dog), and the cat ignores the toy and instead plays with the box it came in. The reason why it’s oft-repeated is because there is a lot of truth in it.

Friday night around midnight I was futzing around outside my garage when I heard something flopping about in the dark. Mark the cat was wandering around, and dashed towards the sound to check it out. It turned out to be a juvenile bird… capable of attaining flight, but just barely. Mark sniffed it a few times, shrugged, then wandered off. I collected it and put it in the cat carrier, thinking that perhaps the neighbors (who have children) might be interested. I left it in the garage overnight.

To my mild surprise, it survived the night just fine. I brought the carrier in to the kitchen Saturday morning and left it there. My devious plan was to call the neighbors early and see if they wanted it. As it turns out, they were gone till the afternoon, so the bird sat there for a good six hours. And that whole time, Raedthinn, and especially Fingers, sat in front of the crate, facinated by the bird. There were minimal efforts to break in; they just wanted to watch. Which they did, for hours at a stretch.

Not sure what species of bird this is (actually, “no friggen’ clue” is more accurate), but it’s got a respectable sense of self-defence. Against a cat or a human it had no chance whatsoever, but that didn’t stop it from putting up a fight. Kudos!

And lest y’all think that this is part of a general hippielike squishiness with regards to animals, boxing it up for the neighbors (who did, in fact, take it in) was Plan B. Plan A involved convincing Mark to eat the thing. But he wasn’t interested.