rules of the game

[Joseph Brenner]

The cat is willing to pretend that the knotted twine on the end of a
line is a small creature that they're attacking, but is willing to cheat
slightly and put a paw on the line to help hold the "creature" down.

The cat does occasionally look up in the air at the stick the line is
attached to, to get an idea of where the "creature" is running, much in
the same way that a dog uses the arm motion of the throw as a clue to
the direction of a ball.

[ags...@yahoo.com]

Here I thought you were going to enlighten us with the rules of the
game of another type of pussy.

[Nyx]

I used to have ferrets. I was trying to play with them like you do a
cat. I had a feather on a string. The ferret looked at the feather,
looked at me, then immediately tried to run up my body to get at it
that way.

I've always wondered if this meant the ferret was smarter or dumber
than a cat. Because it made a connection that cats don't. Or maybe the
cats do make that connection and ignore it in order to play the game.
Was the ferret too smart to play the game, or was it too dumb? It
certainly shows that ferrets think differently than a cat.

Nyx

[Peter H. Coffin]

I'd imagine that the cat is ignoring the string in favor of playing the
game. The ferret, on the other hand, wasn't interested in "game" but
instead wanted the feather. Ferrets will play the game when they want to
play the game, and cats, when they shift into "get" mode instead of
"play", don't bother with the batting at things or the chasing around,
it's a simple pattern of Wait, Stalk, Charge, Kill. "Chasing" is only a
failed charge when it's not playing, and that very seldom happens with a
serious "get" effort.

--
Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life in a career where, if you
really suck, 100% of your work fails and if you're really good and really
lucky only 99% of it is a complete waste of time. - Hal Bogerd