Vampire Ginger bites the wrong cat

Ginger, taking time to sniff the garlic

Sadly, many cats get bored enough to chase their own tails.  But Ginger, the "eccentric" orange feral, takes tail chasing to a whole new level.  If I hadn't heard her yelping and then seen her in action, well, I wouldn't have believed it.

Ginger's bizarre new version of tail chasing happened late one Saturday evening.  Interestingly, it was also the night of the full moon.  But I'll let you decide for yourself if there is a connection between Ginger's weird behavior and the full moon.

On this particular Saturday night, I was up late and engrossed in a book.  Three cats were keeping me company as I read, two cats hovering on the back of my chair and one cat sitting on the chair beside me.  The other four cats were off in other rooms, doing whatever it is cats do when humans are not watching.  Suddenly, I heard some scurrying.  Scurrying sounds are not unusual in my house so I continued to read.  The scurrying sounds got louder and more frenzied but this was still not not unusual.  Nightly feline rampages happen...well.. nightly.  Shrugging the weird noises off, I continued reading until I noticed my feline reading companion

s were tensed up and staring at something.  Before I could even turn to see what they were raptly staring at, I heard the first yelp.  And then another.  And another.  Thinking, CATFIGHT, I jumped up to put a stop to it.  But instead of discovering a cat fight, I saw something very strange unfolding before my eyes. 

Ginger, the vampire cat, had left her favorite hiding spot under a couch in another room and dropped by to hang out with me and the other cats.  But unfortunately, we must have been boring her, so she decided to entertain herself.  She did this by rolling and writhing around on the floor while trying to catch her tail.  And when she caught it, she'd bite it and yelp.  One or two self inflicted bites would have been enough for most cats.  But not Ginger.  She'd bite her tail, then get mad because it hurt and bite herself again.  This continued until my laughing startled her.  Frightened, she abandoned abusing her own tail, bolted from the room and dove back under her security couch. 

This chilling display of feline masochism ended without me brandishing a single clove of garlic.  Honest.  Did Ginger learn that if she bites her own tail, it will hurt?  I'm afraid she hasn't made the connections, yet.  But she's 'only five years old'.  There is still plenty of time for her to catch on.  Hopefully, she figures things out before she does herself permanent harm.  And just to make sure she doesn't hurt herself during the next full moon, I'm going to start decorating with strings of garlic cloves.