Feline training has begun

Over the past few weeks Shadow has become a bit less active (she's no longer a little kitten, and I think that's the reason for it), and of course Scruffy has never been terribly active when I'm around, so it seemd to me that it was time for some training.

Last night or the night before I made chicken, and I prepared some of it for the cats (no herbs, spices, etc - just chicken with nothing added). I cut this chicken into pieces of perhaps a half square inch and froze it, and tonight I defrosted and diced one piece for use in training.

Shadow's exercises consisted of convincing her to climb her pole to close to the top, after which she received a few pieces of chicken, then she had to climb up and come down again to get more. The only problem seemed to be that she sometimes had difficuty seeing the chicken, which I held on a neutral colored dish (and which is neutral colored to begin with); perhaps I'll get a green plate to use in the future.

During this, Scruffy wandered over to investigate what his sister was up to. He was willing to sniff at an extended finger, but when I moved to get him a piece of chicken, he ran off. So, his training took place at his lair; if he sniffed a finger he got a piece of chicken. Unfortunately, there's no easy or comfortable place for me to stand and reach him when he's there, so his training session was shorter than his sister's.

At present they are silently playfighting as they sit in the shoebox. They don't fit in the shoebox without spilling over its edges when they are content to merely lie there peacefully, so their playfighting has a very comical look to it.