On Building A Toy For The Cat

You can spend good money for cat toys, or you can just put some newspapers over an open pizza box set up like a pup tent. Cats don’t know the difference.

I’m presently making a second toy out of something like Popsicle sticks. They aren’t as long and come from a low-cal ice cream bar. The first one has been very successful and I think this will be, also. The first has three layers of sticks, glued together in a star formation, with a button on the bottom so it will spin if pawed.

This one is a bit different, but the same general idea: glue the sticks individually and let dry separately. Then glue them again and let dry, same way. Next, more glue and clamp them together for a few hours. Now I will add another layer and glue that to the first two. Let set over night, clamped together.

Tomorrow, a few refinements and buttons on the top and bottom to keep the cat amused and happy. It doesn’t take much, even if cats do get tired of the same toys and need to have them put away for a while. Which means my little workshop will be part of its life for some time to come.

There are worse things in life than thinking up, designing and building cat toys. It involves imagination and construction, one talent (a) which I have and another talent (b) which I can sort of handle. But the cat doesn’t know that; it only knows there is something new and exciting to bat around the kitchen floor.