Past experience with cat-wrangling over the years have taught me one thing (amongst many): It doesn't matter what the object is, if human cares about it, cat will use said object as a cat would, in order to communicate with human.
Communications from cat tend to be along the lines of: I'm hungry, or in most cases, I want attention (play/stimulation).
Past objects observed: Keyboards, houseplants, pens & pencils, kitchen area counter and anything on it, pet ants, rock and fossil collection.. the list goes on.
And related to cat areas, the secret that I've found was to never rely on buying fancy cat furniture but rather making a unique spot for cat every few days. Blanket for comfort, areas always in sight range of the work desk but not in it (to be distracting for work). Bonus points if you visit and pet cat when they're sleeping in those spots to reinforce that this is their spot and all is well with safety and comfort.
And same for toys, makeshift toys are cheaper and more effective than overpriced pet store shenanigans (Eg: elastics, pieces of string tied together, sandwich bag clips, small bouncy toys). The secret there is also reinforcing playtime with those toys by simply playing with cat!
Edit: written with cat at arm's length distance in makeshift bed in a chair~
> it doesn't matter what the object is, if human cares about it, cat will use said object as a cat would, in order to communicate with human
If you get them their own thing to fuck around with, they'll fuck around with it instead. If I'm on my laptop and put out another laptop, he'll sleep on that one. I had a problem with him turning on the gas fireplace and so put a little switch on his scratching post–problem solved. It's quite adorable when you see it as them incorporating their behaviour into their default state for your colony.
They are incredibly communicative animals. Their problem seems to be that I am a very stupid creature that often does the wrong thing, like not feeding them every time they’re hungry, sitting at a desk instead of playing with them, carrying them out of the room when they were clearly trying to get on the kitchen counter, and so on.
Or, god forbid, stupid creature that I am, I buy _the wrong flavor food_. Then it's all "why are you trying to poison me, hooman? do you not love me anymore??"
One of the best Human-Cat interactions scenes about food in a movie is the opening 10 minutes from movie The Long Goodbye
Yeah after investing in countless cat toys from the pet store, I found out that my cat's favorites are (in no particular order):
- McDonald's paper straw
- Bird feather from outside
- Empty toilet paper roll
- Shoelace
- Strap of Velcro
- Bottle cap
I think variety is the key, and we've had really good outcomes by having a few pet shop toys (feather on wand, squeaky mouse, ball with bell) that we bring out for a few hours every few weeks and then put away, so it doesn't turn into something normal for them to ignore.
Cat + bottle cap around the hours of 3am - 5am seems to be a preferred form of entertainment, from my experience
Elastic hair ties have always been a favorite of my cats. My wife has to hide them unless she wants to be gifted with the "kill" at 3am.
From my direct multi-year study, the surest way to have a cat not lay in a specific place is to place a fluffy cat bed in that place. Also, no toy is more precious to a cat than a non-toy item stolen from the hooman with hair ties being one of the most precious items.
I awoke this morning to newcat lapping from my bedside drinking glass (with a dash of tea/caffeine). She has two other waterbowls... but I guess is mad at me because the edible I ate last night caused me to sleep in too long for her breakfast likings.
Lil'shit knows this is not allowed, on a tabletop she's not allowed upon, no less!
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I'm not a cat person and somehow have inherited a black kitten from each parent.
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At least she didn't curl up napping upon my Apple Silicon (thankfully kess attractive than older Macbook AMD GPUs)... that's when I know I've actually fucked up #catWorld