Toys?

I've had Gatsby for less than a week, and it seems that he's already becoming bored with all of his toys. He has the donut with the ball, a ton of balls with bells, a large ribbon ball, mice, and a stand with a spring ball attached.

I'm trying to figure out what the best thing for him is. I want him to stay entertained!

With the exception of crinkle balls and some catnip mice, my cats prefer milk rings to any of the commercial toys.

How about some wand toys or a laser toy so he can play with YOU instead of all by himself. I'm sure he'd love that.

Around my house these are faves...crinkle balls, these furry real looking mice that squeak (I will try and find a picture) mice with catnip inside, milk jug rings, I have another toy thats a fave but I forgot the name let me go look it up.

The mice I have look something like this one only real furry. Ping will pick it up and carry it around the house to where he wants to play:
http://www.petsmart.com/global/produ...N=2033745&Ne=2

this brings hours of entertaining fun. Especially if you sprinkle some nip in there:
http://www.petsmart.com/global/produ...N=2033745&Ne=2

Laser pens are fun around here to.

He likes playing with this at night when we are trying to sleep:
http://www.petsmart.com/global/produ...N=2033745&Ne=2

www.plainbrowntabby.com - their products are wonderful and it's owned by one of our wonderful members, pat&alix all of my kitties LOVED their stuff too!! The favorite around here was the "kitty lure" the also liked the yeowww catnip banana, krinkle ball mini's and kirby sticks

Our kitties like the catnip mice or toys that you play with them with.. like the feathers on the strings and stuff.. sometimes they'll play with toys on their own, but mostly only when we play with them.

A crumpled ball of paper is one of Daphne's favorites along with the feather on a string wand-type toy. She also likes the laser. Strips off ice cream cartons keep her entertained for hours. She hasn't developed a nose for catnip yet.
Seb will play with the feather for a couple of minutes but Daphne is what he plays with most His very own "kitty" toy

I rotate the toys for our cats. Once a week we dig into the "toy chest" and get out a whole different set of toys and put the ones they've been playing with away for about a month.
This seems to work pretty well. I always have a cat or two helping select toys from the chest when we do this.

Originally Posted by Kai Bengals

I rotate the toys for our cats. Once a week we dig into the "toy chest" and get out a whole different set of toys and put the ones they've been playing with away for about a month.
This seems to work pretty well. I always have a cat or two helping select toys from the chest when we do this.

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Yes! Must rotate the toys! Have 3 or 4 or 5 out at a time. With a kitten, you may rotate them every couple of days since everything is always new to them. With older cats, like Kai sais, every week or so. This way you don't end up with hundreds of dollars worth of toys he doesn't play with

Originally Posted by GingersMom

How about some wand toys or a laser toy so he can play with YOU instead of all by himself. I'm sure he'd love that.

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We do play together. He's just getting uninterested with the toys. I roll the ball with him, I push the spring, ect

Don't forget to marinate the toys when you cycle them. That's what we call it. I sprinkle and rub catnip all over the toys then close them up in a huge plastic bin with a lid. When the toys come back out, the kitties go nuts! It's like a new toy.

Originally Posted by mskitty666

Don't forget to marinate the toys when you cycle them. That's what we call it. I sprinkle and rub catnip all over the toys then close them up in a huge plastic bin with a lid. When the toys come back out, the kitties go nuts! It's like a new toy.

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I do the same thing I keep some toys in a big ziplock bag with a container of catnip...they love it when I pull toys out of the "marinade"

Originally Posted by Intense

We do play together. He's just getting uninterested with the toys. I roll the ball with him, I push the spring, ect

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Then please do try something on a wand, like "Da Bird." Cats like to jump and attack, as if they are chasing prey. They don't play "chase the ball" the same way that dogs do.

My cats' favorite wand toy is mylar strips on a clear plastic wand. The shiny sparkliness and the swishing noise it makes as it goes through the air make my cats CRAZY to attack it!

There is also a wand toy that makes a chirping sound like a bird. That is Ferris' personal fave, and he plays with it all by himself, dragging it from room to room. Yesterday we played together with it for a whole half hour!

Most cats will become bored with toys that don't keep moving as if they are live prey! Cats as hunters naturally will focus their attention on moving objects and often don't even see stationery ones, they just become part of the background as far as the cat's vision and attention are concerned. So toys on strings or wands that you can move around continually (letting them catch the toy occasionally ) are usually a hit with all but the most inactive cats. Laser pointers are great, just be careful not to shine the laser in their eyes as it can cause sight loss.

Some cats like to play fetch, my 2 both do, but the majority of cats aren't that excited by bringing a toy back to you for you to throw again, as once thrown the toy stops moving 'of its own accord' and so won't keep the cat's attention.

Rabbit fur toys are a hit with my boys, they prefer the texture of real fur to man-made fabrics and they get very excited about playing with fur covered 'prey'.

And as others have suggested, rotating toys so that the old ones seem new again is a great idea, keeping them in a sealed box with catnip so that they get nicely drenched in catnip smell. If your cats are in the minority that don't react to catnip, then dried honeysuckle is a good alternative, as most cats are also attracted to that.

All kitties become bored with thier toys eventually. What I do is rotate them. For like a week he'll have certain toys, then I take them away and give him the other ones. It makes them "new" to them again.

I also make their toys tease them. When I clean and vacuum their cat towers and beds also get cleaned. As I move from room to room I pose some toys on their stuff. Sometimes they look like their peeking out of a tunnel or sleeping under a blanket etc. I can never finish the whole place before I start finding the carcasses! It helps to play for just a few minutes with a favorite toy. I make it attack and stalk them and run away and that can keep them going for quite a while.

My cat's love "Sproings" thay are large plastic springs that come in a pack of like 20 they toss them in the air carry them around and go go compleetly batty about them. I throw them and they go nutters

Ditto what everyone else said!

Each of our cats enjoys different toys. Ming Loy LOVES the little furry mice - but only if they have those beans or whatever they are inside that make them rattle. If they're just plain furry mice that make no noise she wants nothing to do with them.

Shelly LOVES the cat curls (described as "sproings" above) and absolutely goes nuts for those. I think those are great toys because when he flips them, they keep rolling and moving, so he can just keep chasing them.

Spooky LOVES balls. Again - only if they have something in them that makes them rattle. She doesn't like any with any kind of opening or bell in them - it has to look like a ping-pong ball (doesn't matter the color) and make noise. Go figure.

Tuxedo goes NUTS for the wand toy with the white feathers. It has to be white feathers.

Flowerbelle plays with anything that moves, but will only fetch for her wand toy with the pink feathers on the end. That toy is now as old as she is, and the feathers are just a stubble. But there's something about that one toy. We throw it, she brings it back.

Lazlo goes NUTS - jumps, summersummersaults, flips - for the cat dancer. Simply a long wand toy that is a muli-colored flannel type thing that's really long and you can snap or wiggle like a snake, on the floor or in the air. He bonks over it.

And they TOTALLY get bored with their toys, so like the others, we rotate them weekly. The only one we keep on hand and don't put away weekly is Flowerbelle's pink stubble of feathers.

We also marinate the furry mice, balls and cat coils. Note: Shelly only likes the thin cat coils, not the thick ones. Go figure.

We also put out paper bags and boxes, and we rotate those too. We don't marinate them ( ), but changing things up seems to really help.

OH - we also have those rings with either the ball or the mouse in them that the cat has to try to "catch" but can't, because the ball is too big to get out of the ring and the mouse is attached, but swivels around in a circle. We switch those out every week - but we also drop the toys they like playing with in them so they have to fish them out. That makes for great fun.

We also keep old kleenex boxes and drop their toys in their for them to get out. You have to supervise this game though, because sometimes they'll shove their heads in there and get the box stuck on their head. You must be there to take it off before they freak out. But this game can keep them occupied for like an hour before they get bored.

You can also hide treats in various places around the house every other day or so. "Find the treat" is fun.

You can also put a treat under a washcloth or something, then play laser red dot (which all cats seem to go bonkers for almost all the time) - and this way they can "win" the red dot game, by making it land on the wash cloth with the treat under it.

Of course, we play red dot without the treat too. It's the same as if they were chasing a moth or fly that eventually just flew away.

Laurie

Oh - and a box filled with tissue paper or packing paper for them to rummage around in, rip at and shred is akin to heaven.

I think for cats, boxes are the gateway to heaven. They must be inspected, guarded and lived in for some time!

Laurie