cat wheel

i have found the (potential) solution to all my troublesome kitty problems...the cats (well, ben at least) act up because they need more exercise/want to be played with, right? now, this product that i'm going to show you via video has had a lot of responses on websites and blogs with people saying oh, quit being lazy, get up and play with your pet...laser pointer, a piece of string, toys...your cat can get plenty of exercise with these things.

OBVIOUSLY these people have normal house cats. cats that would rather be alone, that like to play for maybe an hour a day and sleep the rest of the time. when you have dog cats which would put the energizer bunny to shame in the long-lasting energy department, you understand why this product is appealing. we can play with stu for a while and he'll collapse from exhaustion and be down for maybe 5-10 minutes before he's back up. ben, however, has a bounce-back time of about two minutes. no joke. our cats also conveniently take turns, so while we play with one, the other will rest and vice versa. if the boys had their way, we'd play with them from the moment we got home until the moment we go to bed, and they'd probably STILL be trying to play once we were in bed.

i'd also like to take this opportunity to mention that, through the lovely invention of the cat dancer, we are easily able to occupy our kitties, but we have also increased their stamina. good for kitties, bad for us if we're trying to get something done.

anyway, enough of the ranting and time for the product--the amazing cat wheel. i've always said i'd love to see ben at a full sprint (in a controlled situation) and this would be a great way to do just that (there's an example around 2:10 in the video). thanks to the meridian bengals for demonstrating. by the way--according to various sites, the cat wheel was specifically invented for bengal cats (i guess i should mention here in case i haven't before that multiple vets have confirmed that they are pretty sure the boys are a bengal/tabby mix). what does that tell you?