Why spend a lot for cat toys?
I thought I would mention today what we use for kitty toys at our house to occupy four rabunctious kitties. For practically free kitty toys we use a couple of things around our house. The first thing is an 89 cent package of chenille sticks. They make wonderful kitty toys. They seem to last forever even when being continuously left in water bowls.
They kept my rather high energy tom cat, Xander, occupied for hours when he was younger. It even became a nightly bedtime ritual. I took a lot of them and twisted them into circles. He would bring a circle up on the bed and drop it next to me. This meant, "play with me". I would throw it and he would play with it for a little while and then bring it back to me whereby I would toss it again for him to ran after. We did this nightly ritual of fetch for many months.
Another game that we developed was a form of "catch". I would toss 3 or 5 to him. If he caught one he got 2 points. If he missed, I got 2 points. We always did the best out of 3 or 5. Guess who won most of the time? He did, naturally. Now that he is a year old he doesn't seem to be interested in playing together with me anymore. Lately, he also started taking to putting the chenille circles in his water bowl in my bedroom. I am almost positive that its his way of saying he thought they needed to be cleaned up to his standard.
The second thing we use for kitty toys that cost almost nothing are plastic drinking straws. These are especially useful for the kitten who seems to have a need to chew much like a dog. We have a young tom, Pavel, right now who spends hours playing with his straws, batting them all over the place, biting them, tossing them up in the air and kicking them. If you have ever seen kittens or cats playing with feathers then you will recognize these as a good substitute, especially if you don't have access to any chicken or goose feathers.
One other thing that we use and have had good luck with so far is keeping a couple of strings hanging from door knobs as well. Nathaniel's young female, Duchess, is rather partial to these strings. She makes them do all kinds of things.
Well gotta go now. The dishes are calling me...
They kept my rather high energy tom cat, Xander, occupied for hours when he was younger. It even became a nightly bedtime ritual. I took a lot of them and twisted them into circles. He would bring a circle up on the bed and drop it next to me. This meant, "play with me". I would throw it and he would play with it for a little while and then bring it back to me whereby I would toss it again for him to ran after. We did this nightly ritual of fetch for many months.
Another game that we developed was a form of "catch". I would toss 3 or 5 to him. If he caught one he got 2 points. If he missed, I got 2 points. We always did the best out of 3 or 5. Guess who won most of the time? He did, naturally. Now that he is a year old he doesn't seem to be interested in playing together with me anymore. Lately, he also started taking to putting the chenille circles in his water bowl in my bedroom. I am almost positive that its his way of saying he thought they needed to be cleaned up to his standard.
The second thing we use for kitty toys that cost almost nothing are plastic drinking straws. These are especially useful for the kitten who seems to have a need to chew much like a dog. We have a young tom, Pavel, right now who spends hours playing with his straws, batting them all over the place, biting them, tossing them up in the air and kicking them. If you have ever seen kittens or cats playing with feathers then you will recognize these as a good substitute, especially if you don't have access to any chicken or goose feathers.
One other thing that we use and have had good luck with so far is keeping a couple of strings hanging from door knobs as well. Nathaniel's young female, Duchess, is rather partial to these strings. She makes them do all kinds of things.
Well gotta go now. The dishes are calling me...
posted by Lady Alys | 3:14 PM
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