Buddy vs. Mollie (the free stuffed horse from Wells Fargo)

Part I: the fateful introduction.
B and I opened a joint checking account yesterday and got a free stuffed animal horse gift. Though we both like W-F very much, this fuzzy, cat-sized stuffy gift was and is of little to no value to us, but we quickly thought of someone who might enjoy it very much. That’s right, Buuuddy the cat. Once home, we presented it to our favorite feline friend and, to our dismay, he promptly fled in terror. To say stark terror would not be an exaggeration. I quickly got over my sad feelings of rejection at this display of ingratitude- if the horse would not entertain buddy (I had visions of him gleefully tearing the thing to shreds), then at least I could easily entertain myself by gleefully terrorizing Buuuddy with unexpected appearances of Mollie the Flying Horse of Doom. :) I did so for a while. Then we left the horse in the middle of the living room floor- an innocent, non-aggressive place- and observed Buuuddy navigating the room pressed up against the walls (as far away from it as he could get) or peering at it from beneath the coffee table. We finally hid it in one of the piles of boxes so that he could have some peace.

Part II: the next day
This morning I used Mollie in place of the Buddy Blaster (a squirt bottle filled with water that is used to discourage misbehaving). She sat on the kitchen table to keep Buddy off it, and when he starts clawing the couch, Mollie comes swooping down to prick his conscience.

Mollie, through the eyes of Buuuddy

I find I am of two minds. On the one hand, I do want Buuddy to have and enjoy this new toy- something to wrestle with and claw to death (human flesh is not a good toy, but we don’t have many other options), but it’s also difficult to resist the temptation to send him skittering from the room or watch him do backflips in surprise and fright when Mollie the Death Horse of Doom does something unexpected.

Part III: the tides turn in favor of good-kristin
I pulled out a few hairs from Mollie’s mane for Buuuddy to sniff, which he did. I think this helped a lot for him to way-lay his paralyzing horror of her, because soon after he was taking experimental swipes at her hooves and face, though whenever his claws caught the fur and caused the horse to move, he’d still leap back in fright. We shall see…