Laser pointers!

Max had never played with kitty toys before he met me.

I'd never played with laser pointers with kitties before Max. Pippin wasn't allowed to play with them because first, he had partial cataracts from the time he was born, and second, he was too blasted smart and never followed the dot--he followed the invisible line of the dot back up to my hand and looked into the laser. Which you're not supposed to do because it can cause eye damage--and he didn't need any help making his eyes worse!

So today I finally got out the laser pointer. One of my instruments at work metaphorically exploded and I had to stay and fix it, so I got home late. I was too tired to play much at the toss-toy game, and Max was very dissatisfied with me. To the point that he was doing his best to get me to play kitten with him. I'm too big and clumsy to play rough kitten games (involving pouncing, a great deal of teeth, and the occasional paw-bat).

It took Max a minute to see the red dot. This laser pointer has several interchangeable filters for the light to go through, so you can have different patterns. The pattern I was using has a "solar flare" around the light. It looks like a picture of a sun that a kid would draw, with the rays around it.

But once he saw that dot, oh boy oh boy. It was on. I led him on a merry chase from the comfort of my chair, all through the living room and behind other chairs and under the desk and round and round (although since I know kitties can actually get dizzy, I alternated the circle direction).

I tried to end it on a toy, so he could "capture" the dot, but he was not fooled. He investigated the toy thoroughly, but no dot was to be found. So he started sniffing the carpet around the toy, trying to discover a back-trace to find the dot again. At this point he was so tired he was panting open-mouthed, and I didn't want him to hurt himself, so I didn't send the dot out again.

It took him probably ten minutes to satisfy himself that he wasn't going to find the dot, and he settled down in the middle of the living room (the exact center, mind you, which is one of his favorite places to be, despite being in the middle of three carpet edges). He seems quite worn out. I must remember to play laser pointer with him more often. This is very peaceful now!