Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Best Cat Toys and a Useful Tip












In case you aren't aware, the wifey and I are cat people!  We're just not quite as over the top as Debbie the viral video eHarmony bio chick, which I really think is fake anyway.  We love cats and have 4 of them to prove it.  All the negative stereotypes of cats being aloof and keeping to themselves, only to want attention when they want it are just not true in our experience.

Our boys greet us at the door, fetch balls, follow us around the house, sit on our laps, etc.  Not all of them at the same time, but they take turns.  We like dogs also, especially our doggy nieces Maddie and Molly, but cats just make it easier for us to travel and leave them at home to be cared for by a pet sitter.  We can't forget our niece kitty Bella as well, Sage used to play with her when she and my sister stayed with us for a while.  They were buddies. 

Usually the simplest things are the best cat toys, like string or paper bags, but we do have a few toys they really love that are definitely worth checking out.

Pawbreaker Original Catnip Ball - We just received two of these from Amazon and they REALLY like them.  They were all batting it around the house like they were having a soccer match.  It's actually a hard ball made of catnip, cool idea.

We call this one the rainbow toy, but it looks like the official name is Cat Dancer 301 Cat Charmer Interactive Cat Toy.  This one is kinda like a long string on a stick, but for some reason they like this even better.  They will chase this for quite a while if you run around the house with it and they will jump quite high as well.  Good toy to wear them out a bit.

Laser Pointer.  A staple in any pet owner's arsenal of toys.  This is the absolute favorite toy of Sage.  All we have to do is say 'where's the dot' and he immediately knows it's time to play with the laser pointer.  We try and use it mostly when he is good to reinforce good habits. 

Little play mice (pictured above).  These are pretty simple and when you shake them they make a small noise like there is rice or something inside them.  They love to fetch these and our cat Monkey will sometimes bring them back so you can throw them again.  As he's gotten older he doesn't bring them back as much, but he still likes to run after them and bring them back partially.  They all like these toys and you'll hear them playing with them occasionally out of the blue.

And here's a useful tip....If you have a cat that, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to want to keep his butt down when he pees, try this homemade litter box idea!  Our cat Stinky is getting up there in age and for some reason over the last 6 months or so, he starts out fine but as he's finishing up his butt gets higher and higher to the point where he was sprinkling all over the place just outside whatever corner of the litter box he was using.  TMI?  Anyhow, here's your potential fix...

As long as he doesn't decide to pee in the area of the opening, this will solve your problem!  I was searching for litter boxes with the highest sides possible, but they really weren't any higher than the big ones we already had.  And we can't use the ones with the tops, because Sage won't use them, so I found a post where someone made their own with a storage container.  I had a bunch of them in the garage and it works perfectly.  Definitely a quick and easy solution.  I only used a small hack saw and it took around 5 minutes.



Be sure to check out two other kitty related articles that I posted:

The Best Pet Water Fountains  
Dr. Elsey's Precious Ultra Cat Litter

1 comments :

Jen said...

Love all the kitties and doggies!

 
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