Dead Parakeets! Or.... Maybe Only Sleeping?

 

After making catnip mice, my next cat toy design was not a fish, it was a hamster (people wanted small 'mice' without tails that their cats would chew off) then the third design was this - catnip Parakeets.  Only I used beads for eyes.  I liked them, they could come in green or blue, with white or yellow faces. 

 

Thing is, the very first event I took them to - a cat show - I had two ladies get very upset about me letting cats have what looked to be 'live birds'.  I'm not kidding.  They were really upset.

 

So the next batch I made I put cartoon style X's for eyes, to prove that they were already dead and could no longer suffer when played with by cats.  I used black embroidery floss, but ran out towards the end and didn't have enough to do the complete X's so I only made a slash on each side, indicating that these particular ones were 'only sleeping'.

 

I do have to thank those two ladies.  My sales on these things tripled!  I no longer make 'live' birds as cat toys, they're all either only sleeping or are truly dead.  People like them that way.  Think of it as niche marketing after customer feedback.

 

(He's not floating in a cylinder of water, that's an acrylic tube bracing the toy up so that you can see it better).