#wanjinyou

Why are you like this, you mortifying little gremlin? Wanjin: *goes back to grinding his face into the ghastly armpit of my recently-discarded shirt, which I wore to shovel about 1200 pounds of soil this afternoon*

But tonight, our sweet orange boy evidenced New Behavior.

When we first brought him home from the shelter, he briefly played fetch with me. Just a couple of times, and then I couldn't ever get him to do it again. Down the years since I have tried to teach him, with pretty much no success. But a couple of months back, he started doing it again. Just once or twice in a row; he'll bring me his catnip Christmas mouse, and I will praise him and praise him and give him a treat and then throw the mouse. This has transitioned to just praise and pets and mouse-pitching, and now he's started bringing it up to me a couple of times a night. Usually he's making a mournful call around the fluffy mouthful, announcing himself.

Tonight, he looked at the closed bathroom door, and then he went and found his mouse, and played fetch with me for ten minutes. A solid eight or so throws, with time in between for him to batter the thing around the hallway. He'd bring it, look over his shoulder at the bathroom door, gleefully chase the hurled toy, bring it again.

Eventually he tired of the game and just put his chin on my knee so I could scratch his round head, and when the shower thunked off he trilled happily and raced to wait on the hall rug for Johnny to come out.

So basically, my six-year-old cat has abruptly learned the merits of self-redirection!