Does your cat fetch? (Sally used to, but she doesn't get much opportunity now that we have a dog.) Does your dog do tricks? Do you have your own form of dog aerobics, or is that just me? Have you taught your cat to swing dance?

And keep it clean. I don't want to hear anything about you dressing up a sheep in one of your mother's nightgowns, you freak.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

Answers

Emma (cat) likes to play rough. The way the game works is that you swat her on the butt and she gets all riled up and jumps around and meows and purrs. If you stop, she comes right back for more. When she gets riled up enough, she (gently) bites your hand. A new variation on this game is to reach down her side and grab a fold of her flab. She'll twist around and try to bite. She tries to meow at the same time she bites, creating a really weird sound.

She carries things around in her mouth, but she doesnt' fetch.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

My cat has invented a sort of tag game -- she sits and stares at me until I start creeping toward her with my arms up like Frankenstein or something, and then she runs off, I chase her, she hides behind the treadmill, I start to walk away, she chases me and bats my ankles, i turn and chase her back to the treadmill, she chases me and bats my ankle... she can go on like that for hours.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

If you like to laugh at situations that are a little uncomfortable and tense, then you'd love this. Foster, the 7 month old Australian Shepherd, /loves/ the laser pointer. He lives for it. So does Baghira, the year-and-a-half old domestic shorthair. They, however, mildly hate each other.

So, I take out the trusty pointer and lase the crap out of anything. Sometimes they'll cooperate and try to corner the little dot together, or one will chase it toward the other while the other lies in wait. Sometimes they'll just butt heads and give each other evil looks.

Fun Fun at the Locke household!

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

Consider yourself lucky: I have three "Docs" in my household. (And one cat who thinks she's a dog.) One of my dogs likes to play "Bang, you're shot". When he wants to play the game, he stalks me like a wolf, then stops and stands completely still, just staring me down. So I have no choice but to make a pistol shape with my hand, point it at him, and say "Bang!" so that he can then run around the house at 90mph, knocking things over and stampeding the other animals. This seems to be great fun for him. Then the second dog takes up the cue that it's playtime and brings me her nasty little slimy "toy-toy", which I must throw endlessly down the hall until she tires of the game. At that point, she lays down with the nasty little toy-toy and sucks on it like it was a pacifier. Creepy. Really creepy. >gag< The third dog has this unfathomable need to smell people breath and will climb furniture, small children, plants, and other obstructions to get to my face. She will not get out of my face until I blow breath in her nose. She does this to all my guests too. Go figure. I certainly never taught her to love people breath. The only thing I can think of to explain it is that we all must have "butt breath" to a dog, as butt-sniffing is the traditional doggy greeting in their circles. Hmm, perhaps we humans need to floss more. And don't we dog people have interesting lives...?

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

OK, my dog is incredibly hyper and fetch is the game that never ends. I have, however, found something that will tired her out. I use a hard plastic ball (bought from rcsteele.com) that's too large for her to get her jaw around, and take her to the back balcony, with everything breakable removed. In trying to get the ball in her mouth, it rolls away and she runs all over the place effectively playing fetch with herself. It's noisy, so I only do it during the day, but it's also hysterical and actually lets her get some energy off without killing me.

A soccer ball might work, too, if you can make sure it doesn't get pun

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

I guess the weirdest game I used to play, if you can call it a game, is I used to sing to my dog Ralph. He loved it, and the object of the game was to see just how much I could get his entire back end to wiggle. I'm sure you want to know the words, so here they are.

Ralphy! Ralphy the puppy dog!
Ralphy! Ralphy the puppy dog!
Ralphy! Ralphy the puppy!
The puppy, the puppy, the dog!

That was more than 20 years ago. It's funny how some memories stick. I miss Ralph.

These days when I try to sing my kids put their hands over my mouth. Hmph.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

My one cat likes to play "bag". This is where he jumps on a paper bag and I hold a plastic bag open. He jumps in and attacks me. Then I open the paper bag, and he runs back to that one. And so on. It sounds incredibly mundane when I write it out, but trust me it cracks me up in person. Together, the two cats like to play Kung Fu Kitty: they hold one paw up, and glance at each other out of the corner of their eyes until some (invisible) sign propels one of them to HiYA.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

My mom's cat has this sock toy thing -- it's about six inches long, and soft, and he... likes to be beaten with it. He lies down on his side and stretches out, and you take the sock toy and (gently) whack him all up and down his back, and he rolls around and purrs. It must be like kitty massage. My friends thought we were just very sick people until my post-wedding party, when I demonstrated it for them. Weird cat. He also used to like to lie down on the carpet and be dragged in circles by his tail. Now he's too heavy.

mary-ellen.diaryland.com

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

I even have names for the games my cat and I play. There's Hide and Seek, which involves both of us hiding at the same time and peeking out at each other until he runs toward me and pounces, after which I throw the kitten-toy I'm holding. He fetches it, then runs and hides again. It's very fun and gives me the giggles.

Another game we play is "Forts". I have a brown blanket that I drape over a folding chair or over the space between my chair and ottoman. As soon as he sees me pick up the blanket he runs to one of these spaces in preparation. After he's in his "fort", I take his kitten- toy (it's a stuffed kitten that I bought for my boyfriend. Fitz has some animosity towards it, and every time he sees it on its shelf, he walks past it, knocks it off with his paw without looking, and keeps walking. Very amusing) and brush it along the top of the blanket, and he attacks the movement. Or I lift up a corner of the blanket, toss the kitten-toy in, and listen to the resulting chaos.

Last, but not least, is his favourite game. I don't have a name for this one. I gave him a faux pearl necklace when he was tiny, and it is his absolute favourite toy. He loves the noise. We lost it for a couple of months one time, and he wasn't interested in any of his other toys. I thought he had just grown out of kittenhood and had become more sedate, but as soon as we found the necklace a few weeks ago, he went nuts. He won't leave us alone, and it's hard to say no to tossing the old pearls around a few times when he looks so cute fetching it. :)

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

My all time favorite cat, Toffee, loved to chase the water from the hose. (hose with nozzle off) I could make her go around in circles and almost flip trying to catch the water. She would chase it across the lawn and try to trap the stream of water with her paws. She didn't even mind when it splashed in her face. I thought this was unique to her, but Heather's Gryffyn also likes to do the same thing! He doesn't get to do it very often, because I don't take them out to the yard much. It is too much work. I have to put harnesses and collars on them, then a leash which I attach to the clotheslines. They enjoy exploring up and down the clothesline and out as far as their leash/rope will reach. However, I have to watch them as with 4 or 5 cats attached to the clotheslines, they tend to get tangled up and worse, they can climb the big tree at one end and if they jump off the wrong side of a branch, they can hang themselves. Also, Heather's Gryffyn knows how to get to the end of his tether and then back out of a harness. He then gallops gleefully into the neighbor's yard while I frantically try to catch him.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

two of my cats have this ceremonial thing about water. they make digging/scratching motions on the floor before drinking out of the water bowl. their game is to jump into the bathtub and scratch on the sides of the tub until i turn on the water.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

All my cats play weird little games. The Sprout plays "Fa'belly - Spot!", in which she lies on the floor with all four spiky paws in the air, and tries to catch our hands while we poke her: first twice in the Fa'belly, then further up on her chest on her black Spot. She will also sit up and beg for Catnip Treats.

The Grime plays Pat Flat Cat: I pat the top of his head, and he sticks both ears straight out like wings and looks odd. Both the Sprout and the Grime like to be fished for with this funny little rod I got them for Christmas, attached to a holographic plastic cat lure.

Zozo sits on the edge of our bathtub when we have baths, and swishes her paw violently through the water, spraying everywhere. Then she drinks. When the bath is drained, she lies in the damp tub. I have no idea what that's about. She also jumps up and down like a toddler at our feet when she wants to be picked up, and plays Fang: lie on your back with your paws up and mouth gaping and dangerous, snap violently at any hands that come near, but if they come close enough, grab them in soft paws and nibble very gently all around.

William doesn't play a lot of games any more. He'll occasionally condescend to chase a laser pointer. Mostly he rides around on shoulders, and begs for tidbits of people food. And he sniffs people's breath, but I think that's just because he has damaged bronchial tubes and sinuses, and doesn't smell very well. He does play Master/Slave with the Grime, which is just too cute: "Lick me here. Now here. Back here again. You did it wrong, you useless excuse for a tabby!" Then flips the Grime over on his back, and worries his belly.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

I sing to my cats. Mephisto fetches my scrunchies. He knows where I keep them and comes into the bathroom sniffing for them, so that he can toss them and tussle them.

I've since moved them, but he _still_ comes sniffing at the basket in the bathroom.

We also play the -"No you can't pick me up game" Phish runs into the bedroom (where he's not supposed to go) He eyes me suspiciously to see if I'm going to try to pick him up and toss his ass out. If he thinks I'm coming for him, he hunkers down to make himself as flat as possible and grips the carpet with his claws.

I play the toilet game with Tiger. He likes to wash it flush, so I flush it on purpose for him -- but he has to guess if I'm actually going to make the water swirl or not.

And of course I make them chase catnip.

Mua ha ha. I'm evil, but Shara looks so _happy_ when she's high and it's one of few ways to get her to _exercise_.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

Kelly, my 4 year-old Yorkie who by the way is pregnant, and I have several doggie games. Her favorite is when she gets a goodie for doing her doggie thing outside. We have to toss her milkbone on the floor and then pretend that we are going to get it. She grabs it, then the game consists of us chasing her around the house until she gets tired and eats her bone.

Another game is when we sing to her, and she dances around. She doesn't care what we sing as long as it has her name in the song. I think her favorite is the Kelly version of "The Name Song." You know: Kelly, Kelly, Bo-Belly...

The last game I'll tell you about is my least favorite. It's the one where she tries to get me up when she thinks it's time, usually somewhere around 5:30 am. This game consists of her sitting on my head and kissing my mouth until I open my eyes. Believe, it doesn't take but a split second of dog tongue on my mouth and I'm up. She gets even more excited once those eyes are open. She tries this game with my husband, but he used to throw her off the bed. Now that she's pregnant, he whispers, "Get Mommy up." And, she does. And, he rolls back over to sleep.

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

Oh my goodness. I sing "The Name Game" to Mia the cub puppy, too, except that I don't know all the words, so it degenerates into "Mia Mia mu-mia, fie free Mumia..."

Tova games:

I stick my hand under the throw rug in my room and wriggle it around while she attacks and claws at the writhing lump. If we don't play it often enough, she eases a paw under the rug and bats at it with her other front paw. Sad. We play a similar game that involves being on opposite sides of a door that has a half-inch or more of clearance between it and the floor, but it tends to result in finger injuries.

Fetch the superball: this only seems to work if I throw it someplace where she can hear it but not see it, e.g. down the stairwell or rebounding around a corner. She gets curious, chases it down, and brings it back.

Magic Carpet: Tova sits on the doormat in the entryway and digs in her claws. I drag it all over the smooth floor, whipping it back and forth and making three-sixties, while she holds on for dear life. If you doubt that she actually enjoys this, know that after I stop she sits on the stationary rug for several minutes, hunkered down, waiting for the ride to start again.

Piggyback: when I get out of the shower, she waits on the bathroom counter until I put my robe on, then makes the leap onto my shoulder and we walk around the house like that for a while. She always jumps onto my right shoulder, then shimmies her body across the back of my neck and ends up with her head by my left ear. Since her front claws are kept clipped but not her hind ones, the right shoulder of my [very nice Anachini] robe is devolving into a frayed puff of terry. The rest of the garment is pristine.

Hide and seek: while petting her I will act as if I've suddenly lost my mind, startling and taking off for parts unknown. (Giving her a taste of what it's like to be on the receiving end of cat fickleness and psychopathy.) She will hunt me down, leap in the air with glee when she finally discovers me, and then settle in for more pats, until I freak out and dart off again.

Then there is that oh-so-maddening game that she delights in playing on the increasingly rare occasions she escapes to the outside world: when I come out to retrieve her, she'll amble away at a pace just fast enough to keep me trotting barely two steps behind her, but casual enough that she can feign ignorance of being chased when finally cornered, turning around and meowing in faux-delight at having found me in the yard.

The cubs like lots of games:

We stages barking, yiping jam sessions at 3 a.m.

We eats dead leaves

We eats the paper napkin carelessly left on the floor that superfically resembles a dead leaf

We bites your hair

We pulls off your socks

We makes you throw ten objects across the room until you finally comes across the one we wants to chase

We plays tug-o-war with you

We plays tug-o-war with each other when you tires of the game and aggressively tickles the other dog with the opposite end of the rope in order to start some shit

We bites each other on the ear while on your lap, and if you tries to separate us, we "accidentally" bites you

We chews our rawhide chewies, except our sibling always gots the rawhide chewy we wants and we must fights over it in spite of the fact that there is a dozen chewies scattered all over the play room

We gnaws on the book you is trying to read

We attempts to eat your pineapple slices, but we doesn't really like them so we just licks them and rejects them, so you haves to throw them out even though you really wants to eat them

We harrasses the chihuahua at the park because we is terrified of all the other dogs and bicycles and joggers

We chews on the bars of the baby gate that keep us out of your room, and don't gets it when you yells "Attica! Attica!" and cracks yourself up in a sleep-deprived fit of self-amusement

We bites Tova's catnip ball

We bites Tova's fur mouse

We wants to bites Tova but she sure can leaps that baby gate

etc.

................

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

Our Maltese terrier Fluffy used to like piling things up. She'd usually start by picking up one of Dad's shoes in her mouth (and the shoe was nearly as big as her), worry it, growl and snarl and make noises at it, and generally try to kill it. Having done that, she would then grab another shoe or a sock or something, do the same thing to it, and then lie it on top of the first item she'd already killed. She'd keep doing this until she had a pile of four or five things. We always thought that was pretty much the funniest thing Fluffy ever did.

Tonight We Sleep In Separate Ditchesstupid human tricks

-- Anonymous, February 22, 2000

Oh god, I forgot about the laser pointer. That's good for hours of fun.

Another game that actually has a name is this one. When Emma is perched on the bed or on the floor, you can take sheets of newspaper and tent them over her. You can keep adding several sheets so that she's completely covered. She loves this and will commence to purr. If you want, you can poke a pencil or something under the edge and get her to play, but she's happy to just sit there covered with newspapers for quite a long time. We call this her "Emma house".

Usually George, the other cat, comes along and spies the tip of her tail sticking out, and pounces on it, putting and end to her fun.

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2000

Spritel will occasionally hop up on desk/counter/dresser. If he's not getting enough attention, he swat something off the edge, then peer intently at it on the floor as if thinking, "uh huhhuh, cool, dude." If you replace the object, he'll knock it off or move on to the next object.

He also likes to play Bed Shark. When Dale and I go to put clean sheets on the bed, he'll jump up to get under the sheets. He'll then charge around under there trying to attack your hands. He likes it under there so much, we've occasionally made up the entire bed with him still under there.

Pumpkin and Maggie have a different version of Bed Shark which is where they attack the moving lumps under the sheets- usually our feet when we're trying to sleep.

Pumpkin's most amusing game is Fetch. He loves these little pompoms. If you throw one, he'll chase it down and bring it back. We tire of this before he does. If he hears "ball" he goes into fits, meowing and rubbing against you. He keeps losing them in the sofa and under furniture. I think there must be 20 or 30 of them stashed around the apartment.

Maggie's favorite toy is one of those chains that you wear with dog tags (the military kind). If you grab one end and twirl it or drag it, she's in heaven. Unfortunately those mush into the carpet easily and we've vacuumed up several.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

Lucy (cat) chases scrunchies too, although we call them 'hairbands.' She will climb up in the linen closet, where we keep them, and knock everything out until she finds one. If one of us is in the bathroom, she'll push it under the door and then sit outside of it and meow until we open it and throw it back out.

She used to take my sister's troll dolls and behave as if they were her babies, but stopped that once we got her spayed. Kind of like the dog with the red cordless telephone, remember? :)

My sister invented a game called "Lucy's Rules" for our entertainment. She will sit down with Lucy and say, "Time for Lucy's Rules." Then she'll say, "Rule number one: Never point your finger at someone." She'll then point at Lucy, who will promptly bite her.

"Rule number two: Never put your hands --" Lucy will attack Erin's hand with both paws and her teeth -- "or feet --" repeat action -- "in someone's face."

"Rule number three: Never pet a cat where they don't want to be petted." Erin will sort of wiggle her fingers between Lucy's eyes, something she absolutely hates. More attacking ensues.

"And last but not least... never put your face in someone else's face." Erin puts her head down by Lucy's, and she'll bat at Erin's ears and hair. It's all very amusing.

It's also a good thing she doesn't have claws.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

When I moved away from our old apartment on Capitol Hill, one of the things our lease required was that the entire kitchen be cleaned, including beneath the refrigerator. I moved the fridge out from the wall -- it was on casters -- and approximately 25 superballs rolled out from underneath, scattering all over the linoleum floor and driving the cat into paroxyms of delight.

Bizarre fact I just remembered: those clear orange rubber balls weren't actually superballs. A friend of mine worked at the Lions' Eye Bank and one night he brought over some little balls for Tova that he'd put in his pocket at work. She loved them so much he smuggled out an entire Ziploc baggie's worth for her. (I TOLD you everyone loves Tova.) The balls' true purpose at the eye bank were to be inserted under the eyelids of corpses after technicians had removed the donor eyes, so that the face would still look normal if the donor were having an open-casket funeral.

Which is a worse fate? a) Trapped inside skull of dead person for all eternity or b) tormented by small furry animal for hours or days before coming to rest in a filthy, dusty, one-inch gap under a fridge?

......................................................................

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Semi-amusing pet-related conversation today.

The players:

Me.

The foster care coordinator at the animal shelter for which I volunteer.

Foster care: We have a rabbit coming in that's recovering from surgery. Can you take her?

Me: Well, I took care of rabbits at the last shelter I worked at, but all I did was cut up vegetables and clean litter boxes... I just don't feel confident about my abilities to care for a recovering bunny.

FC: She's not sick; that's not why we can't have her in the shelter. It's just that she has no chance of being adopted while she's bald. The vet shaved half her body.

Me: Oh. Uh, how long would this be for?

FC: I don't know. How fast does rabbit fur grow?

Me: So I just keep her until she stops looking like a freak.

FC: Right.

Me: Should I pick her up Monday when I bring back the puppies?

FC: You have PUPPIES?!

---

I guess someone neglected to do the paperwork on Mia and Val. I was wondering why no one had called me yet.

This rabbit is going to be a drag. I've only ever met one that I liked. He was boarding at the shelter where I worked last year, while his owner was on Christmas vacation. When he saw me coming he would grab his cage door in his teeth and bang like the world's most adorable political prisoner. If I paid attention to the other bunnies instead (it was kind of my job) he would thump his feet in his water bowl and soak me. When I'd set him on the floor, I'd sit cross-legged and he'd leap into the circle of my lap, boing over my opposite thigh, zip around my back, and then launch himself into the lap again. When he got tired of this he'd sit quietly and rub his chin all over my hands.

My co-worker Gail used to look over the ledge into the play area and tsk-tsk me. "You're in love with someone else's bunny," she said ominously. You'd have to replace "bunny" with "husband" to imagine the tragedy with which she regarded the situation. She tried to feed me cautionary tales: "I was in love with one of the boarders once. When his owner came to take him away, I cried and cried, didn't want to let him go."

Everyone who works in animal rescue (except for me) is a fucking weirdo. Hey, maybe if they forget to file the forms for this bald rabbit I can take it out off-the-record and grow me a nice new hat.

..........................................

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000