I’ll play with just about anything. Sometimes my human brings home fancy toys but they rarely compare to the fun things he keeps around the house. There’s the crinkled paper, which has that thick swishing and staccato cracking sound; there’s the headphones he leaves dangling over the edge of counter, a teasing pendulum of motion; and don’t forget the toilet paper, oh the toilet paper, which he hangs in the over-the-top fashion just so I can unroll it easier. Every now and then though, he’ll cut the tags off of something that’s more entertaining than all of those.

Two weeks ago was one of those days. I saw the tag poking out of recycling bin: it was The Cat Fancier’s Association’s Porcupine Wiggler.

He pulled on its tail, set it on the ground, and the tiny beast stuttered forward across the floor with a low putter. I approached it slowly—it’s could move on its own, after all. I test-tapped it a few times to make sure it was dead, and then picked it up with both paws. It was love at first toss.

It makes this weird noise when I toss it around; there seems to be something inside of it. I love ripping at the fur. The bottom is all smooth, and great to bite if you don’t want to get a mouth full of fuzz. The only strange thing is it looks different now because I saw my human pull off the tail a few days ago then say a bunch of short loud words.

I still run every time he crumples up paper, but I keep returning to this porcupine. It’s great.

Basti’s rating: 4 paws and 1 tail