When I first got Hope, I bought her many toys. Bizzy balls and little feathery fish on elastic strings … catnip mice and other kitty-cat pleasures. She’s okay with those. She’ll bat a bizzy ball around in her spare time. She’ll attack a feathery fish if she’s bored.
But you just don’t know what a cat will “choose” as its main toy. It will always be something unexpected.
The toy Hope “chose” is a small stuffed bunch of two bananas. I believe there was catnip in it once upon a time. It has no bells and whistles. It doens’t move on its own. It just sits there like a lump.
But Hope LOVES it. In almost every picture I take of her, the two stuffed bananas are also somewhere in the frame. She can’t really let it out of her sight. She’ll take a nap on the floor, clutching the two bananas in her paws, or lying directly ON the two bananas, because that way she won’t have to worry about her toy’s location.
When I went to go pick up Hope after her month-long stay at Kerry’s, we were gathering together Hope’s belongings … and I said, suddenly frightened, “Oh wait. Where’s the banana?”
Kerry immediately understood. She had obviously experienced Hope’s adoration of the two bananas. “The banana! Where is it?”
Then began a search, and Kerry found the banana under her couch.
Phew. I would have had to go out and buy another one just like it, to keep her placated.
Hope is surrounded by things that should be interesting. Scratching posts, bizzy balls, hair ties, feathery fish, and my bamboo plant which she seems to find delicious.
But the bananas have won her heart. She’s a one-toy kitty.
I love how animals are just, by nature, into one thing or many things. Like Hope, who really just loves that one toy, or like my former pup who couldn’t chew on enough things – it’s such a huge facet of their personality. I’ve had pets where, like you, I provided with with tons of toys and they wind up playing with an old lid to a tub of Cool Whip or something. Fascinating what they’re drawn to.
Right!!
Kinda like the pictures of me when i was about 3 with a collander on my head.
Best toy ever.
“Where’s his bizzy bee?!”
My cat’s favorite toy is a cheap little ALF puppet. I would put it on and wrestle him with it. When he got bigger, he would pick it up by the scruff of the neck and carry it around the house. I would find it everywhere.
Once a commercial for the show came on that featured a bunch of shots of TV ALF bopping around the screen. He noticed this and ran up to the TV, trying to attack ALF. It wasn’t the last time I caught him watching TV.
What a great picture! Had to snap it on the sly, right? She is so on the alert there – “Someone’s stalking my bananas…”
Seriously. Stay away from my banana.
Hope, dear, nobody wants your stupid banana. You’re safe!
That’s so funny about Hope. Our library cat, Stacks, is obsessed with my boss’ bamboo plant. She keeps moving it higher and higher but he just climbs higher and higher.
He also loves wadded up paper. If he hears someone wadding paper, he RUNS towards the sound and he will carry a ball of paper in his mouth everywhere he goes.
Cats are so strange!
Hope’s quirks
She will never jump up on the bed directly from the floor below. She has to jump up onto my windowsill, tippy-toe along the sill, step delicately out onto my scanner, and then leap onto the bed. A more roundabout…