Giving a gift to a cat is similar to giving a gift to a person: There's that nervous anticipation of whether the recipient will approve or turn up her nose. A cat can also throw in the "covering shit" gesture. People are sometimes more polite.

In this particular case the gift was a new scratching post, roughly the outline of a mouse and hardly a traditional post at all.

After putting the "mouse" in its own spot and telling Cloudberry and the other cats that this was for them, Cloud as head honcho is the first to inspect the strange item.
 

A study of Cloud studying.

Cloud then indicates her approval by engaging in traditional scratching: hind paws braced and front paws rapidly shredding.
 

The basic cat scratch.

It didn't take her long to figure out that this style of cat post has further advantages for advanced scratching, such as being balanced against the slope of the post.
 

The advanced cat scratch.

After a while of furious activity, Cloud paused to further consider the possibilities.
 

Cloudberry calculating.

After a short pause, Cloud demonstrated scratching in the reverse position, scratching at the corners, and throwing herself through the opening and scratching the underneath of the top level.

All in all, while she did approve the gift, Cloud intimidated the other cats into thinking they would have to perform all sorts of gymnastics if to use the new scratching post. So George and Muffin avoided being seen by the new post for a couple of weeks in order to practice in private.