{"id":2011,"date":"2017-06-06T05:18:38","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T13:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2017-06-06T05:18:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T13:18:38","slug":"newsday-tuesday-a-cat-after-my-own-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=2011","title":{"rendered":"Newsday Tuesday \u2013 A Cat After My Own Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lily is a giving cat. I\u2019ve talked before about how she brings me her toys. She has a whole collection of tiny stuffed animals\u2014opossum, owl, eagle, bears, hedgehog, moose, cat, turtle, bunnies and so forth. We keep them in a now over-flowing basket in the living room\u2014separate from the grandchildren\u2019s toy box. (However, Lily often pilfers stuffed toys and small dolls from the children\u2019s toy box.) But the toys don\u2019t stay in the baskets as Lily likes to decorate the house with them. She doesn\u2019t play with them, she simply chooses a toy and carries it to a spot where she drops it and either lays down with it for a while or walks over it and leaves it there.<\/p>\n

She also brings me toys in the morning while I\u2019m working and at night when I\u2019m sleeping. \"\"She brings them with a \u201cbrrrrrt,\u201d as if to say, \u201cHere I come with a gift.\u201d What\u2019s really cute is when she brings me my slippers. Yes, she actually does that.<\/p>\n

But her carryings-around are usually carried out clandestinely. She announces the gift, but she doesn\u2019t seem to want to be seen with the toy in her mouth. I\u2019ve tried all sorts of maneuvers to capture her in the act on camera. And it happens\u2014but rarely.<\/p>\n

Last night, for some reason, she treated us to a performance that I could have actually video-taped. First, she brought her baby bunny through her tunnel, looked at us and dropped it. Then she went back to her toy basket and chose her baby opossum, carried it through the tunnel, walked with it toward me. Gave Dennis a strange look as if to say, \u201cHey, you aren\u2019t supposed to be looking at me.\u201d Then proceeded to drop the toy at my feet. And I got pictures! Cute, isn\u2019t she?<\/p>\n

\"\"What I haven\u2019t figured out is why she does this. Is this a result of her latent hunting instincts? If she were an outside kitty, would she be bringing me birds and lizards?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019m glad she came to us with this unusual habit because she helped to inspire the Klepto Cat Mysteries. I hope to finish Book 24 in the series today and pass it off to my beta-readers. Then to my proofreader. Yup\u2014we\u2019re closing in on, yet, another exciting story\u2014and you can thank sweet Lily for it.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lily is a giving cat. I\u2019ve talked before about how she brings me her toys. She has a whole collection of tiny stuffed animals\u2014opossum, owl, eagle, bears, hedgehog, moose, cat, turtle, bunnies and so forth. We keep them in a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2014,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/2014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}