Spidercat

We are blessed with many a cat toy in our household. This includes 2 huge pieces of our own furniture that mum dubs the ‘cat trees’. These are great for both climbing on, and clawing. The idea being, that if we sharpen our claws on the cat trees we don’t sharpen them on the couch.

This generally remains true in our household, as there is nothing quite like the feeling of stretching out and grabbing hold of that carpeted column and letting rip. However, sometimes clawing furniture, whether mum’s or our own, isn’t for the purpose of keeping claws sharp and trim but purely for attention seeking. In these circumstances I find the couch is a much more worthy object as there is always a reaction.

When clawing the couch, one must wait until mum is in direct eye contact and then slowly engage the claws, so the sound of claw on cloth literally ‘pops’. Sometimes, when in a play frenzy, Sylvie or myself scoot along the floor pulling ourselves along the bottom of the couch with our claws, which also obtains the desired attention. More often than not, I just apply the slow claw release, which emphasizes the popping sound (and a curt yell or clap from mum to stop).

This morning, however, I applied a new technique: the Spidercat. I did a circuit loop running around the lounge at high speed, and ended up on the couch for some claw popping. However, instead of claw popping from ground level, I managed to gain enough momentum to suspend myself midway on the couch, looking like I was defying gravity. When mum went to tell me off, she couldn’t stop laughing. Spidercat was a winner.

Prof. Griff

Figure 1: Diagram of Prof. Griff applying the Spidercat technique to claw popping.