Brain Cells on Parade

What – you thought they wanted a warm place to curl up? To get their ears scratched? Food, even?

No, what this cat wants most is to chase the beam from the laser pointer.

I don’t know what it is about this light, but Cy would happily spend all day and all night chasing it or intently staring at it. This has been going on for some months now and shows no sign of abating. If anything, his addiction is getting stronger.

He’s figured out that the light comes from the pointer – all I have to do is hold it up so he can see it and he begins eagerly scanning the floor, walls, and ceiling for the light before I’ve even turned it on. If I suddenly turn it off, he looks straight back at the pointer. It appears to be the single greatest joy in his life.

Last spring, I attended a cat show. One of the craft booths included a tubful of laser pointers being marketed as cat toys, so this is apparently no great secret. By the way, as with humans, one should not point the beam directly in the cat’s eyes.

I should also note that this feline fascination with laser pointers is not universal. Bun-Butt could not care less about these things!