Tunch got a new toy tonight, a replacement for his favorite, which we broke the other day. A new stuffed animal on a stick:
More below the fold.
The stick toy has always been a favorite in this household.
New Toy
by John Cole| 62 Comments
This post is in: Cat Blogging, Open Threads
HyperIon
I thought he already had a boatload of toys.
John Cole
Those are just balls or little mice or stuffed animals that a well meaning relative or friend has given him.
Scott de B.
He probably sat on the box of toys and crushed them.
binzinerator
Is Tunch off his diet or is he just overdue for another defurmination? I know he lost some weight but he’s looking a bit heftier now, me thinks.
TenguPhule
It’s like the Rancor pit, only better lit.
KRK
Great photos. Tunch moves!
My cat has no interest in toys, and catnip does nothing for him. It makes it hard to play the role of indulgent cat owner.
Calming Influence
The fourth picture, of Tunch studying the toy: I’ve had cats for most of my 53 years, and I’ve become convinced that Sun Tzu had a house full of ’em.
JL
Tunch’s exercise program doesn’t look very strenuous
Grab the toy, eat the toy, swat the toy all without moving his butt. Good job Tunch.
Laura W
I don’t think it qualifies as “exercise time” if he just lounges on the futon and gnaws on it. Do you drag it around the house and make him chase it and then when he gets close, lift it up in the air and force him to clear ground, a half inch or so? Assuming he can achieve lift-off at all?
I was thinking about Walter (The Dead One) the other night and his beloved “Fishing Pole Toy”. Same deal. And man that cat could jump some footage after I made him travel the whole house, dragging it just out of his reach. It was his favorite toy as well. And good exercise. But HE HAS TO LEAVE THE COUCH, JOHN!
MMM
many of the solutions to the world’s problems can be found in a $4.99 bottle of port….Tunch, this drinks for you.
John Cole
He leaves the couch when I don’t have a camera in my hand and a toy in the other. It is just easier to take pics while he is on the futon.
Ninerdave
My cat drags her stick toy around with her and will drop it at your feet. She then proceeds to paw at it as if to say, make it move.
Laura W
@MMM: You sure you don’t mean “solved in a $4.99 bottle of port…”?
But then again, you probably wrote what you meant.
wasabi gasp
Holy mothers on treetops, that’s a lot of sausage.
Laura W
@Laura W: Interesting. MMM had time to edit and my edit window collapsed down to 20 seconds when I swore I had 4 minutes or more left, leaving me no time to retract or delete my question.
Odd.
MMM
quick fingers
No more yankie my wankie. The Donger need food.
Mike
How come Tunch doesn’t play with his toys the way the LG&M cats do?
donnah
We adopted a new cat last October when she was six months old. She loves toys much more than our older cat does, so we got her one of those with the stick and leather string and a furry thing at the end of the string. Is it supposed to be a mouse? Is it supposed to be a bird? We just call it “the mousebird”. We can ask her, “Grace, where is your toy? Where is your mousebird?” and off she goes to find it, drags it to us and waits for us to flip it around for her.
We have to hide it at night, though. She drags it, clackety-clack up the wooden stairs, then back down again. All night long.
JL
@donnah: Dragging a toy up and down the stairs sounds like exercise. It might be annoying at three in the morning but at least you kitty is exercising.
Jon H
Amazingly lifelike.
JenJen
So how many toys is that now? 65? 66? Something like that?
BruceFromOhio
@donnah:
She’s pretending that its chasing her – that’s what makes it FUN!
Fulcanelli
I never noticed that spot on the back of his neck before in your pix. That must be where he jacks into the kitteh matrix when you’re sleeping or not around. He is a handsome little bugger, still.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
@Mike: Because we would have to experience something like this with a Dead soundtrack instead, that’s why.
Later, Henry drinks to forget set to a soundtrack of Canuck indie-pop.
Tunch is handsome enough on his own. He doesn’t have to be a pr0n star.
John Cole
Anyone else watching Southland?
cleek
here’s how Tricksey gets her exercise.
Calming Influence
Tunch is a big picture guy: “Should I get up and chase this toy around the house, willy nilly? OR, should I remain calm and observe it’s (and John’s) behavior? From these observations, will I be able to deduce that this toy will return to taunt me, at which time I will vanquish it? I believe the answer to this is yes.”
You can tell he’s cerebral from his over-sized head.
Calming Influence
Southland is 2 hours away on the left coast – no spoilers please…
jenniebee
tonight my sweet doggie girl went to get her tennis ball to go for her walk (she carries the ball around as she walks) and she found two balls and couldn’t decide. She dropped one to get the other but then the first one bounced and that was fun so she dropped the second one to catch the first and then the second one bounced and she dropped the first and then she was juggling.
Calming Influence
My sister in law’s golden walks around with three tennis balls in his mouth most of the time – at first it’s kind of disturbing, but you get used to it.
John Cole
@Calming Influence: No spoilers, just I am really liking the show and hoping it has an audience.
valdivia
love Tunch. he looks so cute with his toy.
Betsy
Until fairly recently, my kitty could be endlessly amused with a shoelace to chase and a balled-up piece of paper that we’d throw. She would *leap* into the air to try to snatch it before it hit the floor. It was astonishing to me how high she could go.
Now she’s a little bigger, not really a kitten anymore (1 yo) and is a little lazier. So we have her chase around the feathers-on-a-stick toy, which can still make her run, if not leap to such heights. More work for us, though, more’s the pity.
Sarcastro
Heh. I’ve also got one that drags his stick-with-a-thing-on-it (a felt strip in this case) around all the time. He carefully folds it up into a little wad at the top where it meets the stick before he does so. He also drags it into the bathtub at night if we don’t hide it. And he’s gone through two of them so far.
Calming Influence
@John Cole:
I’ve locked onto it and I’m promoting it at the water cooler. The characters are fresh, and I’m praying they keep the same writers on for at least another season if the show gets extended; Truth is, my “liking it” seems to be the kiss of death for new shows, but I’m an eternal optimist…
AhabTRuler
Momo went through three fishing pole toys in less than a week, so I built my own version, which she adores. She can leap several feet in the air after the bait, and goes flying in pursuit.
PS: The new Momo movie is hitting theatres now! Cole should appreciate the soundtrack.
Little Dreamer
My cat doesn’t need toys (although I do have a few rubber balls scattered about the kitchen, and he likes it when I drop a box or grocery sized brown paper bag on the floor for him to crawl into). He’s now taken to creating his own game, which is to climb on top of the microwave, which sits atop the standard sized refrigerator and meow for rescue. The first time he did it, I figured it was a fluke, now I realize after he’s done it again that this is becoming a reminder to me that he owns me.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Picture # 4 is teh awesomest. “YAAAR KILL DESTROY MAUL!”
robertdsc
Love Tunch so much. Thank you.
wasabi gasp
I wish my cat would get the fetch notion in her head. Whenever I play toss the toys with her, she darts after them, does a little cartoony backpedal to avoid smashing into the wall, pounces, and then trots away leaving me to go pick it up and toss it in the other direction. And I do it, over and over again, until I’m dizzy enough to drop. Yet, when I wake in the morning, there it is, her favorite toy on my lazy boy.
Litlebritdifrnt
Swooping in to say that DH is fine. We had to report to the hospital at 8am this morning and got home at 10pm this evening. Catherterization went well, no iodine problems (cardiologist told him they were going to “medicate him up the ying yang, I am assuming it is a medical term). More importantly no blockages and his heart has “good function” (whatever that means), he spent all day in a gown with no back snoozing on a bed and I spent all day wandering the halls of the hospital, reading newspapers, doing crossword puzzles and looking at really excellent exhibits of nurses uniforms over the centuries. Lunch at the hospital coffee house consisted of Brocalli and cheddar quiche (huge slice) and spring salad (mixed spring greens, mandarin oranges and some sort of crystalized walnuts) a HUGE meal for the princely sum of $3.35 I was gobsmacked, normally hospital cafeterias are like movie theatres for their price gouging. Anyhoo, hubby is now snoozing and watching National Treasure and I am trying to catch up on the blogs. Thank you again for your thoughts gang, obviously they worked, looks like DH is gonna be around for many more years to piss me off and make me laugh.
asiangrrlMN
Awwwww, kitties! At first, I thought that was a cast on Tunch’s paw. I’m glad I was mistaken.
@cleek: Tricksey is a very fluffy and beautiful girl.
@AhabTRuler: Momo is ridiculously cute.
@wasabi gasp: Yes. This is what my boy, Raven does. This proves that they are smarter than we are because they have trained us to fetch.
Litlebritdifrnt, good to know that your hubby is going to be OK.
AhabTRuler
@Litlebritdifrnt: Glad to hear everything went well for the DH. Hope that your holding up alright too, these things can be harrowing even for the spectators.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Little Dreamer:
My gang climb up on the roof of the house (via the garage roof, via the trees next to the garage, it is about as difficult as crossing the street), and then sit above the front door and plaintifully mew as if they are trapped and at deaths door, I fell for this several times, even dragging out the stepladder to get them down, until I realized I was being duped, now when they mew I say to them “you got up there you can get down, I am not falling for this again” at which point they will leap over to the garage roof, scoot down the tree and then twine themselves around my feet in an effort to say “but you were concerned just a little no?”
Litlebritdifrnt
Thanks gang, his lifestyle is going to have to change, while we have got his cholesterol down from 300 to 208, we have got to reduce it even further. Smoking is pretty much gone, so we are both working on the assumption that we are quitting on June 1. Cheese fries (his favorite thing in the entire world) are going to be seriously modified from now on, in the past I have tried this, and got so seriously sick of his whining about it that I gave up (I actually said to him after another “this is low fat cheese” whine “Fine so go ahead and fucking kill yourself, see if I care, you are well insured” none of which I meant you understand, but one can only take so much) Anyhoo, we got it down 100 points, we can get it down another 100. He may very well come to this realization kicking and screaming but he is going to get there eventually :)
asiangrrlMN
@Litlebritdifrnt: Aw, that is a cute story about your cats. Yeah, the things we do for our babies, yes?
As for your hubby, yeah, it’s difficult to get someone else to do the right thing if he doesn’t want to do it. Good luck to you with that.
AhabTRuler
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I know this is a rough one, but it’s one of the best things you can do. I never believed that I would be able to stay quit, but it has been the easiest part of quitting. Good luck to both of you.
Plus, the extra coin is sweet!
Little Dreamer
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Yeah, Stormy gave me that treatment too. He won’t get himself down off the micro, but, he will climb onto my shoulder after I stand next to the fridge to give him a place to put his paws and then look at me like “I had you worried there, didn’t I?”.
LMAO – Cats!
Oh, and glad to hear your hubby is okay.
grumpy realist
Litlebritdifrnt: glad to hear that your husband is ok. You probably know all the guff about exercising to regulate cholesterol, blah blah blah. Can the two of you do walks around the neighborhood? One of my friends has lost 20 lbs, dropped blood pressure, dropped cholesterol levels through consistent walks every evening (she’s now starting light jogging.)
(Speaking of jogging, now that exams are over and I have no classes this summer I can start heading off to the sports club again. FINALLY.)
Anne Laurie
Breeders sometimes refer to a headspot like that (usually a white spot on a dark coat, but Tunch of course chooses to be different) as an “angels’ kiss” or “Buddah’s kiss”. Our late great bad boy rescue papillon Flash (Hairy Flashman) had a solid-black head with orange eyebrows and 6 white hairs atop his head at the perfect spot for kissing. We referred to that spot as his “angels’ air-kiss” because he was such a wicked fella that obviously the angels didn’t want to stand too close!
Tunch is such a big ol’ grouchbag, apparently the angels have to sneak up on him from behind. But I can understand why they’d take the risk, because he does look like the star of a Japanese silk scroll…
Litlebrit, glad to hear that your DH came thru with flying colors.
Lesley
I can picture Tunch when he’s old, using an electric chair-lift to get up the stairs.
BethanyAnne
Heya Litlebrit, glad to hear that DH is good. One thing that has helped me are Graham Kerr’s cookbooks. His wife had heart problems; he made food medicine; his family rebelled; he now makes food that rocks but ain’t bad for ya.
Good luck!
Bethany
harlana pepper
Awww! (head tilt) Fourth from the top is my fave. And these are true “action shots” this time! Got get ’em Tunchers!
harlana pepper
Just got done playing with my friskiest of the three (she still thinks she’s a kitten altho in truth, she’s an old broad in kitty years) with a long green ribbon. I gave up on buying toys. They seem to prefer twist ties, plastic tabs off milk cartons, beer bottle caps, etc., although the feathers on a stick were usually well-received but it never took them long to reduce the feathers to a pitiful little nub at the end of the string.
harlana pepper
@KRK: If a cat is receptive to catnip (all 3 of mine are) and you sprinkle catnip on a toy and subsequently end up with three nipped cats, it can get ugly. You can put other toys out but they always want what someone else has.
harlana pepper
@Anne Laurie: My black princess has a white stripe on her foreleg. Just about every time I bring her in to the vet, somebody asks me about it. My best theory is that it was the result of them taking blood out of that area of her foreleg for testing on her first visit as a kittoon and, although she did not lose any fur there, of course, I do think it created a “trauma area” whereby hair grew back white. They never believe me but that’s the only thing I can come up with. She is now about 18 yo.
The Saff
@Anne Laurie. My Sherman is mostly white with orange markings. He has a single orange spot to the left of his neck. I’ve always referred to it as the “kissing spot” and that it’s his way of saying, “mom, kiss me,” to which I always oblige.
As a friend of mine said, “cats are magic.”
John, Tunch is gorgeous.
SGEW
The only things my cat likes to play with are plastic wrappers, rubber bands, paper bags, and guitar strings: she more or less ignores the actual “toys” I try to regale her with (with the notable exception of this thingy).
Oh, and my feet. Loves to “play” with my bare feet.
ouch ouch ouch
ET
I knew this was a Tunch post before even clicking. Can’t decided what that says about me.
Tony Alva
Below the fold’s of what? Fat? Just kidding… Tunch is a good boy. He’s going to need one of those battery powered scooters though when he get’s old for his trips to Walmart:-)
Erika Froh
What a cutie! I assume he has a Cat Dancer? Or should I call it by it’s true name, Crack-On-A-Stick?
dopealope
Ok, I almost hate to ask this, but I’ve always wondered from where the name “Tunch” comes ? My google search didn’t render any satisfying explanations …