Diesel is a cat, not a petroleum product.
He lives in the Adirondack Park with his two people and his pal Alex, a female stripey cat (and purebred Iowa Wildcat). Diesel has things to share, observations about the world around him from his feline perspective. In these pages you'll follow Diesel's paws-on exploration of places, people, critters, issues and more.
Welcome to Diesel's domain and the unique perspective of a curious Wisconsin Snowcat.
I got a Yeowww! brand lemon for the big tree holiday celebration. Here I am trying to get it out of my gift bag (part of my appeasement package from the company that borrowed my name).
Alex got a Yeowww! banana but Oom wrapped it in tissue pretty tight so she decided my lemon might be better.
It was touch and go there for a few minutes, but my stoic attitude prevailed and she decided her banana was better. Holiday tensions arise in any family. I was glad to see this quickly resolved, though I think the slightly offscreen cuff in the head might have been productive.
I hope you got cool smelly good stuff for the holiday too.
When all is said and done, we love nip. Nip makes us deliriously happy. We love our fresh nip in the yard, our yard, the neighbor's yard...any yard. And when we get our people to buy us buy nip, we think it should be organic.
Our overarching recommendation is: if you love your cats really, really, with all the BIG love, get all your furniture reupholstered in a very thick, nail resistant, wool or hemp fabric (again, we prefer organic) and stuff it with nip. I am not kidding! You would have such happy cats! Indeed all cats would love you cause you would smell so good all the time.
I myself have a nice upholstery shop right down the street. These guys are ready for anything, and I love to keep them in business.
Alex and Diesel's 2010 Cat Toy Recommendations!!!!!!
Diesel's by far favorite Toy:
The Yeowww! Greenfish
Runner up: any sturdy ball
Alex's by far favorite toy:
6 feet of premium boating line at 3/8 inch (especially with Boo at one end)
Runner up: Yeowww! Lemon or Yeowww! Banana
We're giving Rosie the Rat an honorable mention.
Best toys for shelter cat donations:
Yeowww! Stinkies (modeled on bite-sized sardines)
But, remember, profoundly satisfying toys are often found in unexpected places!
If you haven't read part 1 yet, off you go...scroll down. Come back when you've read it. One thing we cosmic cats know is that humans are, as a rule, very linear.
Me and Alex already laid out the first of our two overarching categories for helping humans choose the best cat toys: Action Toys. Today, we move on to the Lickitty-Sniff Doohickeys, commonly known in cat circles as LSD. Below, I've laid out some examples of prime LSD. Here, you see Alex sleeping off one of those crazed lickitty sessions with a new nip toy. Don't even ask about the car...don't lick and drive!
There are two keys to a fine LSD toy: texture and/or smelly/tasty qualities. I've covered texture elsewhere. Suffice to say, it should be intriguing to the cat tongue, but not overly ticklish or tacky. Sturdy for biting and bunny kicking, pliant but slightly resistant to the tongue.
But, let's be honest: it's all about the nip. High quality catnip can make the world a better place. It isn't our intention here, however, to go into a full review of the merits of fresh and/or dried nip.
Before we move on, a brief note about kittens, that is, young cats. For some unbelievable reason, some kittens are immune to catnip. Have no fear, for the small minority of kittens for whom this is true, they grow out of it. Nip is a common language.
All the toys below meet our base criteria. They have organic nip in them. They have sturdy, lickable covers, since what we want to do is lick and slobber all over them to make them wet smelly good so we can rub them all over our body. These are all commercially available nip toys, but there is no reason that industrious humans cannot make these fine things for their feline friends.
Lower right you have your flax covering. Unfortunately, not the best quality nip inside and kinda itchy on the tongue. Lower left, two nice wool toys stuffed with nip. Nice, made for the cool folks at the One Stop Pet Shop in Amagansett, NY. Great store for the discerning cat. Middle bottom: a good idea that just failed - organic nip in corduroy. Just not our style...especially after Memorial Day. Very top; another good idea, somehow gone wrong...more may not be better. Little blue abstract mouse in the center is a beloved relic of a late great NYC pet store that was LSD purveyor to The Cat Who Came Before Me. She had impeccable taste.
The row starting with catcigars and ending in the lemon and the little fish - that's got our vote for the best freakin' LSD around. We love the Yeowww! brand nip and the sturdy canvas covers. The subtle shape of the banana (Alex's middle name), the action toy physique of the lemon, the neat package of the triangle that Alex refers to as her spanakopita. The pumpkin is fun, but aesthetically...ummmm. The Greenfish is, in my view, the crowning achievement of Yeow!!!! But I have not yet had the pollack. The little stripey fish is known as a stinkie, again, LSD as scooty action toy.
We've handed a few of these fine products around just to make sure we weren't hallucinating...or at least while we were writing this. Here's our pal Dusty, who lives downstate, approving of the fine Yeowww! banana:
That leaves the furry tiger mouse which is Alex's (above the flax mouse). This is her most important possession. It has a near twin. Alex sent this one to me at the shelter before I was adopted so we could meet by smell. It drove me nuts when I first laid paws on it because it smelled like high quality nip and like Alex. Alex always keeps these nearby. What's particularly smart about this toy is that you can replace the nip! It is a Smartycat toy. These folks make some great toys though several fall under our "mutant" subset detailed in part 3 of this series.
These two categories - action and lickitty-sniff - are really just constructs to help you think. They can be distinct, but they can also crossover. Here, I demonstrate that a LSD toy, indeed my favorite toy, can be an action toy (kittens, as soon as possible, try this at home without the supervision of an adult cat):
For our next blog, important subsets of our two broad categories: inappropriate and appropriate toys and mutant toys.
I hope you all are relaxing this weekend, providing special treats for your cat friends, and eating good kibble yourselves.
Me and Alex are heading to the Big City for a few days to celebrate the tree holiday with Boo's mom, Boo's littermate and his people. I gotta go pack toys, but before I do that, I thought I'd update you on the cat side of the gift giving yesterday.
We had a very good tree holiday. It was quiet...just the four of us. The centerpiece of the gift giving was an extravaganza I arranged, thanks to my friends at DuckyWorld Products Inc. For those of you woefully behind on excellent feline products, DuckyWorld is the proud manufacturer of Yeowww! brand catnip and toys. They sent a box of goodies for me to review.
Quite a haul, eh? I take my review responsibilities seriously, so I sorted through the items to see what to include in Alex's and my review and what to keep back for some of my pals at the shelter.
Then Oom helped my wrap the box back up (no, I can't do that by myself) so we could share and celebrate with Alex.
Needless to say, the wrapping paper did not last for long. Alex has an acute sense of smell. The tissue was so quickly decimated that we did not capture it on camera. But the aftermath of box opening was just as fun.
She zeroed in on the high quality flower buds right away.
Thankfully, Oom finally opened the bag for her and gave her a stalk...
I reserved for myself the sole Greenfish.
That's a lemon, and banana, and a pumpkin...
Yeowww! buds + tissue paper = cat haze.
The serious business of catnip toy reviews remains...but what a great way to celebrate a holiday.
