I just re-watched TNG “In Theory” (S04E25) and Data says that the door to his quarters is set to only allow humanoids to enter or leave when Geordie finds Spot in the hall.
Whilst I get that it would be dangerous for Spot to wander the ship freely I think it’s kind of mean to keep him locked in a small room like that forever. There doesn’t seem to be any cat toys in the room but maybe the computer is capable of some sort of environmental enrichment we can’t immediately see.
The ultimate cat toy would be a custom holodeck program.
That program? An almost completely empty holodeck, with a single cardboard box in a corner.
And a little light ball, like a reflection off a watch face, that sometimes appears that just randomly moves around and, importantly, can be “caught” (as in has a physical presence, sometimes).
In the holodeck you can catch the red dot.
Totally. I started thinking that as I was posting. Or you could have like a motorised laser pen. Thinking about it, you could easily hide something like that in the walls of the TNG style starship quarters.
Computer, set cat toy to stun
Geordi… I cannot stun my cat
Didn’t Data play with spot at one point with a cat toy? One of those feather toys on the end of a string? I swear I remember this happening.