Too Smart for His Own Good

Last fall, Mr. Bluebird and I lost our cat Bedford to a brain tumor. It was a pretty miserable experience, as we tend to view our pets as our children since we don't have any human children. Bedford was an awesome cat, very smart, lovable, and very large. We still miss him.

However, we realized that we missed having a boy cat around the house. We had three girls, and we love them to pieces, but we kind of missed the little personality traits we tend to find in male cats. So, I found a wonderful pet rescue organization, The Privileged Pet, and we found Duke.


Duke has been an eye-opener. He was under a year old when we got him, only about 8 months, so he still was very much a kitten. Our girls range in age from 10 to 12, so this little guy was a bundle of energy that really woke all of us up. He's a character. He was highly socialized before he came to live with us, so he gets along with everyone and he and Spicer, our youngest girl, tend to play together a lot. It's been great for everyone.

And he's also so smart he's beginning to freak me out a bit.

I tend to wear my hair in ponytails during the summer, especially when I'm going to the gym and working in the yard a lot. I recently bought a pack of about a dozen or so ponytail do-dads, not quite scrunchies, but similar.

Duke is obsessed with these ponytail holders.

I have found these ponytail holders, obviously chewed and played with, all over the house. He's completely destroyed an orange one so I decided to let him keep it for a toy, especially since I don't like orange anyway.

I then found a yellow one on the living room floor.

Apparently Duke has figured out that I usually toss these on the bathroom counter. Hubby and I have both caught him snooping around the counter, looking in baskets, and dashing off with a ponytail holder when he finds one.

So, I started making a very determined effort to keep them in a drawer, which is then shut, so he won't destroy all of them. After all, he won't figure out they are in there, will he?

Wrong.

I thought I'd solved the problem of Duke snagging and destroying my ponytail holders and was enjoying a cup of coffee and sudoko the other morning when he trotted by, went to his shoebox (a box he likes to play in, sleep in, and apparently hide toys in), grabbed a yellow pony tail holder, and trotted back to the guest bathroom where he hopped in the tub and played hockey with his new toy.

"Okay," I thought. "Maybe I forgot to put it in the drawer and he found it."

So I made another real determined effort to keep the ponytail holders in the drawer, and the drawer shut.

And the next day I caught him on the bathroom counter twice, and found two ponytail holders on the floor.

This morning he was sitting in the sink, looking innocent. Later on, I found the drawer open and another ponytail holder in the living room.

Duke has not only figured out that these ponytail holders are kept in a drawer, but he's figured out how to open it!

Which brings us to this question: Are they putting catnip on ponytail holders now?

****Silly Cat Update****

This is now a continuing game with Duke. I put the ponytail things in the drawer and shut the drawer. Next time I go into the bathroom, they're out on the floor. Repeat. Obviously he needs a challenge to keep himself occupied!