Cat Info - Toy Tips

Toy Tips

General Tips

Food Tips

Keeping your cats occupied, especially if they are indoor cats, helps keep them mentally fit and healthy, and play can provide much needed exercise for them too.

 

Boxes

String

Tinsel & straw

Toy mice

Food hide&seek

Catnip

Boxes

Cardboard boxes can be great for keeping cats occupied. Large boxes can provide something for them to jump in and out of, sit on, and hide in. If you have more than one cat it can make hide-and-seek more fun, especially if you move the box around from time to time. You can cut holes in the side of the box so they can see out. Maybe dangle their toy in front of the hole while they're inside, so they can bat at it through the hole.

My cats like to be teased by toys that are just out of reach under things. You can take a tissue box, open one end of it, and put it with the top down on the floor so the opened end is the only way into the box, and then put their toys or a treat inside. They'll have fun reaching inside with their paw to try get it.

Back to top

String/Shoe laces

All these fancy feathered-thing-on-a-stick toys are all very well, but I've found that just string and shoelaces does as well, if not better, as a thing for your cat to chase. I sometimes leave bits of string dangling around the place for them to attack, when I'm not teasing them directly with the string.

Back to top

Tinsel and drinking straw

This is a toy idea I got from the breeder I got one of my cats from. Use some sticky tape to attach some tinsel to the end of the drinking straw, and you have a sparkly cat-attracting device which is light and easy to move quickly. Particularly useful for making cats run in circles and get dizzy ;).

Back to top

Toy mice

I've bought a few different toy mice and toy balls that cats are supposed to like attacking. Only one type has particularly held their interest consistantly, and that's a particular style of toy mouse which has a small and light plastic or cardboard-fibre body with a short fur covering and a paper fur-covered tail. The reason they like them so much is partly the look of them, but also because they're so small and light they're easy for the cat to bat around at speed - heavier or softer toys tend not to bounce or flick so easily. The brand I've got most recently was labelled "Hartz Mini Mice".

Back to top

Food hide-and-seek

This is a good one for stimulating your cat's hunting skills (particularly sense of smell). Shut them out of a room, and hide cat treats around it. I tend to use bits of turkey roll, as my cats love turkey roll, and it has a nice strong smell to help them seek it out. Hide it in places they can get to, but places which are out of plain sight. And vary where you hide it from time to time. It's always fun watching my two cats race to try and find it before the other. They need to learn the 'less haste, more speed' tactic though. Sometimes the just rush about checking the obvious spots over and over again first without checking carefully and using their sense of smell enough - although usually after a bit they start to sniff the food out.

Back to top

Catnip

Most cats are influenced to some degree by catnip. Useful for rubbing on toys and scratching posts to get the cat an extra incentive to use them. Be careful not to spill any on anything you don't want attacked though ;). You can get a catnip essence spray, but I didn't find it worked very well. Just normal catnip flakes or the powered form do the job!

Back to top