Cat toys & other items review

Nody

I've had this in the back of my mind to write this for a while as I'm always looking for new ways to amuse my furry overlords. I'm going to be linking to Zooplus mainly for each toy simply because I've bought most of them there but you can find these toys in pretty much every pet store (and I got no affiliation past or present with Zooplus beyond being their customer). The evaluation is based purely on how our current five cats (two sisters who're 4 years old now that we got at 6 months and three foster kittens who we got at 4 month that are now 6 months), our friend's 8 year old cat and our parents in law outdoor cat (3 years old) has reacted to the toys.

All items will be scored on a 0 to 4 paw scoring system were 0 is utter dud and 4 is "buy it yesterday you fool or your overlord is not pleased". Most items will end up in the 1 to 3 category and as always individual cats will react differently to different toys so this is purely what we've seen and can say about them.

Catit Design Senses Play Circuit - 2 paws
A toy many cats owners have run into; can be done as a S or a circle and combined into longer length. The route is partly covered in plastic with a ball inside for the cat to reach in and bat around with "hills" on each end to make it roll back again. In general this has not amuzed any of our cats for any length of time but they do regularly return to it to play every so often even after 3 years with it. We've found one of our cats prefer S shape while another prefer the circle so they can sit in the middle of it and hit it around. It's sturdy, easy to vacum clean up and will be around for as long as you got a cat. When we gave one to an mainly outdoor cat how ever he simply ignored it utterly.

Catit Design Senses Speed Circuit - 1 paw
The expensive brother to the one above. Instead of being flat it's constant hills and valleys making the ball roll a bit longer (but not much) and the ball has a blinking red light. Our kittens played with it for 5 min and has rarely returned after; I think the fact it's all valley's and hills means the ball may stop earlier and require more force to get going is a bit of a downside here compared to the "normal" version. Due to this I'd recommend the (usually) cheaper normal version over this one because it has entertained our cats longer and it's cheaper.

Rustle Tunnel Swish - 4 paws
Yes it looks horrible but ours have remained it's shape for 4 years now of thrown around, jumped on etc. It always remains a tunnel and provide a great charge out off/hide away place for cats. Our tunnel sees use every day usually every hour!

Cat Tunnel green/white - 3 paws (for kittens)
A cheaper tunnel that do not keep it's shape as it's not strengthened but also very popular among our kittens as it's constantly changing shape and make interesting crinkling sounds; our adult cats don't care about it though so only if you got kittens would I consider this tunnel.

Catit Design Senses Food Maze - 0 paws
Great idea; poor implementation. The idea is you put treats in the top level and the cats have to push the treats down three levels before it arrives in a food tray fo them to eat. This will activate your cats and make them work for the food.

We got this as an idea to give treats to our cats and have them work their furry brains a bit and it has not worked out at all. First of all our kittens figured out they can stick their head through the opening at the top to get to all the treats due to the size (as it's for treats it could really be done with a 3cm hole rather then 10+ cm sized hole). Secondly our larger cats who can't stick their head into it figured out they could get the treats by simply pressing them against the opening wall (relatively low plastic ram of 1cm from the floor) and lift it out from the top floor with out any further activity required (this was done with in 5 minutes by our our cat who tends to have more trouble with figuring out things).

Catit Design Senses Massage Centre - 2 paws
We got this as we got two cats who just looooooooove being brushed and honestly it's working quite well. The cats who love being brushed will bite on it and rub on it regularly but our kittens who don't care for brushing don't really give a damn; hence the 2 paw scoring. If you got cats who love to be brushed it's a 3 or 4 paw; if not it's not that interesting and probably 0 or 1 paw toy.

Cat Dangler Pole Bird (Da Bird) - 4 paws
This toy has been used a lot in "My Cat from Hell" series and by other users as well. Our kittens are so much wanting it that we have to hide the toy or they try to climb glass doors (not kidding) to get to it! Same is true for one of our older cats; if we bring it out the tail will start swishing and she'll mjau around for us to start the play. This is by far one of the best cat toys, if not the best toy, I've ever used. If you get it get more of them as they WILL break. The thing is you want to make them really chase and jump for it and not let them get it directly; it's a "bird" that is flying around the room for them to find and helps to exhaust them. Even our out door cat enjoyed chasing it around indoors which is a testament in and of itself to me.


Trixie Toy Plush Mice, 6-pack - 3 paws
There are many versions of this type of mice and our cats tend to chase them every so often and play with them. Smaller once are great to carry in the mouth while larger once (can be bought in Ikea cheaply) are great to be kicked etc. Never hurt having some around as they tend to get dusty, dumped/pushed under furniture (we found over 10 under our oven for example) and need to be replaced regularly. Cat nip versions exist and some cats love cat nip, some don't so use as you see fit.

Plastic balls - 2 paws
No link sorry as I could not find a suitable link but standard plastic balls in various forms. Our cats greatly prefer once with bells inside (to make a sound as well) but as with the mice they tend to get stuck in various locations with dust, stepped on etc. and need regular replacement. Don't overspend on them though and buy cheap once as they will be lost over time.

Laser dot - 4 paws
Few things to keep in mind with laser dots; first of all you want the weakest possible laser dot (that usually means 0.5 mW) to not risk hurting your cats eyes if they look into it by mistake. Secondly most laser dots require that you constantly holds in the button for it to shine (which is painfull after a while).

You can buy them in the store for 10+ EUR or you buy them at source in China at 1/6th of the price. Buy two or three as the build quality are not always the best though.

The idea with the laser dot is to chase; our cats looooooooove chasing and run the length of our apartment chasing the dot at full speed over and over again and will come ask for more laser dot several times a day (we do it in the evening due to the darkness make the dot more visible). It's a cheap way to excercise your indoor cat and with some practice you'll get them to run around all over the place chasing it!

A cardboard box - 3 paws
As strange as it sounds but just a empty cardboard box (with one opening either cut in the side or the top) is a great cat toy. They can jump into it (you can have plastic in there making noise if you got kittens; they'll love it!), sit there and observe and feel protected. It provides plenty of interesting oppertunities for cats and we currently have one in our living room (not wanting to remove it as it see use so much) from our latest order of kitty stuff.

In general if they can look out sitting up it's about the right height but most boxes will do in a pinch.

Furminator - 4 paws (adult)
All cat owners know the joy of removing hair all the time; a furminator (or one of it's copies) is a way to help with this. Our adult cats loooove their furmination sessions so much that waving the furminator will have them come running to us and flop to get it done. Our kitties though don't have the patience and will run off again because something caught their fancy.

Strongly recommend and you'll be surprised how much hair you get out from your cats and into a garbage bin rather then on your clothes.

Tiger Diner Cat Bowl for dry food - 2 paws
We did not have quite this style but the principle is the same; we had a cat who stuffed herself and regularly threw up kibbles that were undigested. We got her this style of feeding bowl to slow down her eating and it's been night and day; no longer is she going through her kibbles like it's the first food she's seen in a week (kibbles are always available) but she's also eating less and not throwing up, big win!

If you got a cat that throw up regularly or if you got problem with multiple cats who can't share a bowl properly this is a great 4 paws item; if not it's only a nice to have thing.

SlimCat Treat Ball - 1 paw
We had no success with our ball but our friend who put her cat on diet and filled it with regular kibble had some success with hers. Her cat would bat it around when there were no kibble in the bowl (automated feeding bowl once a day) if he got hungry but he much preferred to try to steal food from his slaves instead.

mymo

Great and very useful review, thanks Nody.

Some good free or cheap toys we get much fun out of are:
Scrunched up balls of paper, cardboard boxes (thank you amazon for providing hours of fun), ring off the plastic milk bottles, and the bottle caps, small pop bottle with rice in it.

Also think the laser pointers are great investment, tires out our kitten and one of the dogs.
Have you tried the Kong kickeroo? It's a great hit here with all 3 kitties, it's got a fluffy dangly tail, makes a rustling sound and has catnip. We have the kitten ones (on offer in pet mania for €3.99)

Nody

I've seen it but did not buy one yet; I'll add it to our next order

Pumpkinseeds

Great idea for a thread. Da Bird gets 4 paws vote in our house too. I'd really recommend it. Both our chaps love it and whats really great is that our lazy overweight chap is crazy about it. We play with it on our bed and he leaps about all over the place and into the air. Not seen him like that for years, and if I'm upstairs for more than 10 mins he comes up and gallops about to give me the hint that he wants to play:)

A huge favourite in our house is the organic catnip filled 'Polloc fish' 4 paws, it has no filler and is about 11 inches, I think, long. We get 'spicy micey' 3 paws, from the same supplier Funky Felines in the UK. The Polloc fish gets licked, drooled on, kicked and used as a pillow and they are very strong.

1 of my guys loves tinfoil balls, though they can't be any bigger or smaller than a marble or he isn't interested.