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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

why do cats eat things they *know* will make them sick?

My two cats loved to play with the feather on a string on a stick toy. Oh, boy, did they love it. But they would eat and ingest the feather, throw it up on (inevitably) carpet which would then retain traces of whatever color that feather was forever and ever amen.

And if they happened to be left alone too long, they would eat the string too (though thankfully I caught them before they ingested it).

So, after many years of tucking the thing into hiding places (usually my bottom dresser drawer), I found something that I figured would be as much fun but without as much of the worry over them eating it.

It's called the Cat Charmer and this is the picture from Amazon:
















When we got home tonight after our first birth class (very informative and diverse and long), I nearly stepped in a small pile of "hello we've thrown up a hairball right in front of the door and look it has lovely colors". It was the color part that had me concerned. That is until I leaned closer and saw that it was not just red tinted, it was rainbow tinted. Now, what did we have that is rainbow colored.....

There is exactly the amount from the hairball mess missing from the length of the toy.

Why would they eat it if it makes them sick? I guess you could say that they didn't *know* this makes them sick since it was a new toy. And you could say that they don't have the cognitive ability to know that every time they eat plastic they get sick, so they keep doing it.

Oh, and did I mention they also threw up on our favorite bed blanket. The one that is perfect for this temperature?

2 comments:

  1. For this very reason, we can no longer use ribbons on presents in this house. It looks so sad, all the Christmas presents with no spirally metallic silver ribbon like I love...but Merlin will eat ribbon like there's no tomorrow. Thankfully, it doesn't make him sick, though, but the vet informed us that it could get wound up in his intestines and require surgury...hence the no ribbon rule here. He even managed to eat part of the fabric ribbons off Aislinn's old mobile...had laid it in the floor while we were packing. Sigh. All cats have their "poison" so to speak.

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  2. Cat puke is such a joy. What kills me is when they get all crazy and excited for dinner, eat and eat and eat, and then immediately throw it back up. We don't have too many toys with feathers or strings. They go for the little things... like the little plastic safety rings on milk cartons and my hair bands. I find them hidden all over the place.

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