beagleton / shock absorber
          / string type

T H E  T H I N G
O N  T H E  E N D

Desirable Qualities

weight:

Heavy enough to allow easy throwing, light enough to be harmless should it strike the cat.

material:

Ideally, something that is pleasing to gnaw on but difficult to get ones claws or teeth into.

Recommendations

Masking tape wad:

Quick and simple. Wrap masking tape around the end of the string until you produce a small, fairly flat object about the size of a quarter.



Newspaper Birdie:

Pinch a sheet of newspaper at its center and scrunch the rest of the paper into a wrinkled cone. Fold the tip of this cone over on itself and put a rubber band around it, forming something like a giant badmitton birdie. Those directions aren't terribly clear, but I think you can get the idea from the picture. Start with a large tail and the cat will rip it down to size. (Don't expect this toy to last forever.)

Tie the string at the birdie's waist (where the rubber bands are). Or better yet, tie a rubber band to the end of the string then wrap that rubber band around the birdie's waist using the wrap-twist-wrap-twist procedure that is hard to describe but everyone knows. This way, when one birdie gets torn apart you can easily detatch it and attatch a new one, or something else entirely.

A sharp tug of the sting will cause it to fly through the air like a flightless, ballistic bird. By the way, looking at my picture I see that my birdie looks a bit wide. They fly better if they're scrunched into a narrower, more streamlined shape.

beagleton / shock absorber
          / string type