With cat toys you keep your cat happy – and at the same time protect your furniture. You can find out how one is related to the other and which toys make cats particularly happy in our guide.
That is why toys are important for cats
Cat toy
Not only are there tons of cat toys out there , but there are a number of good reasons to buy different toys for cats :
Physical and mental fitness training
Testing your skills as a hunter
Treatment / prevention of depression and behavioral disorders
Strengthening the bond between your cat and you ( cat education )
High entertainment value for people
Physical and mental fitness training
Like humans, cats need exercise – both physically and mentally .
Playing stimulates the cat’s blood circulation and metabolism. It (also) ensures that your kitty stays in shape, i.e. not greasy.
Playing (especially with cat intelligence toys) challenges and promotes your cat’s gray cells. With a whole range of possible challenges, the velvet paw has to exert its head to resolve the matter at hand.
Testing your skills as a hunter
Not only big cats like tigers, lions and leopards have a natural hunting instinct. The same applies to the comparatively small domestic cats.
As outdoor cats, cats often love to hunt mice, birds and other small animals. In the case of pure house tigers, mistress and master can often observe how their four-legged friends sit in front of the window and follow the flight path of a bird with increasing excitement.
By offering suitable cat toys, for example classic play mice, you give your cat the opportunity to satisfy its hunting instinct .
When your cat brings you prey
You have probably heard or read it somewhere before, but as a refresher we would like to briefly note that you should not punish your cat if it puts a captured mouse or a captured bird at your feet .
Always remember that your kitty was only following her instinct. She just wouldn’t understand what could be wrong with this behavior. Instead of scolding your cat, praise it.
Thank you for the “gift” (even if it is logically not a nice one) and stroke your four-legged friend.
Also important: absolutely refrain from snatching the prey from your cat as long as it has it between its paws or teeth. Otherwise you shouldn’t be surprised if you get growled, hissed at, scratched and / or bitten.
Better wait until your kitty loses interest in her “souvenir”. Then you can dispose of the latter.
Treatment / prevention of depression and behavioral disorders
Does your cat seem permanently apathetic and “in a bad mood” ? Or do you have to be annoyed repeatedly about scratched furniture ? In both cases, the cause can actually be a lack of play or a general lack of exercise .
Before you go to an animal psychologist in panic, we recommend that you practice playing with your kitty. Do yourself daily with your four-legged friend and show him how fun it is to romp around.
Over time, symptoms of depression or behavioral disorders often disappear. And if your cat doesn’t show any signs of this, you can use the range of games to ensure that it stays that way in the long term.
Strengthening the bond between your cat and you
Immediately after a cat has moved in, you always want to build a relationship, a bond with her. This is elementary for a permanently harmonious coexistence.
Playing together is a wonderfully simple and effective way of accelerating the process of getting to know each other and quickly leading them in a positive direction.
Tip: If a cat sees you as a suitable playmate right from the start, your chances of being accepted and liked by her are pretty good.
But even for cats that have been around for a long time, playing with the “staff” (you know …) is an important activity – after all , the bond should be increasingly deepened or at least kept at a constant intimate level.
High entertainment value for people
It is not only the four-legged friends who benefit from playing with the cats. You and the other people in the household will certainly find great pleasure in watching the velvet paws do their lustful, passionate activities.
It’s just entertaining and warming when a cat chases a tin foil ball around the apartment or proudly brings back the hair tie you threw her earlier.
By the way: Cat toys are not only essential for domestic cats, but also for outdoor cats – on the one hand because of the cat-human bond and on the other hand because of the uncertainty as to whether and how intensely the kitty is really playing outside.
After all, every cat is individual. Some may just lie down relaxed on the sunlit wall and more or less ignore playing outdoors.
These types of toys for cats exist
Cat toy
The selection of toys for cats is now incredibly huge. Manufacturers are constantly bringing innovations onto the market that promise to arouse the curiosity of cats comprehensively and to satisfy them reliably as a result.
There are several options for differentiating cat toys and dividing them into individual categories. The following differentiations are most common:
Solo entertainer toys for cats versus cat toys for mutual cat-human games
Mere hunting / movement toys versus cat intelligence toys
Solo entertainer cat toy
Your cat is more of a ” loner “, so prefers to deal with itself (and its cat toy)? Then you tend to buy play utensils that you can work on yourself.
This means that the toy for cats should not necessarily require your (uninterrupted) presence.
A typical example of such a cat toy is the pull-up mouse . With this, your cat needs you briefly to activate the play element. Everything else is completely in her paw.
Cat toys for cats and humans to play together
The most popular cat toys for pussies and humans to play together are definitely the cat rod and the cat tail .
With both versions you hold a rod in your hand as a driver. Either a cord with a special bait (mouse or bird feathers) or just a bait (without a cord) is attached to this rod.
The model with a line acts as a cat rod, the model without a line is called a cat whisk.
You pull the stick along the floor or any other surface and use it to lure your cat. When she feels like playing, she enthusiastically chases the bait – until she no longer likes it, can no longer or you give her the impression that her hunt was successful.
Tip: Of course, you can also hold the cat rod or the frond in the air and in this way encourage your cat to jump into the air.
Mere hunting / movement toys
Toys for cats, which only encourage their velvet paws to move, exist in various variants. Here is an overview of popular cat toys of this type:
* You may know it from the movie “Pets”, in which Chloe the cat is passionate about chasing the point of a laser pointer. Kitties enjoy following light stimuli and (supposedly) catching them with their paws. If you want to use this modern cat toy, you must make sure that you never shine directly into your cat’s eyes – this could lead to injuries. In addition, you should end the game with something really tangible : at the end of the game, let your kitty capture a toy mouse or bird feathers so that she can achieve a “real” success and “vent”.
Balls (bouncy ball, paper ball, fluff ball and so on)
Play mice (small, large, bushy, electric or non-electric)
Strings (cat tang, shoelace and so on)
Laser pointer or other light stimuli *
Cat intelligence toys
If you want to keep your cat on the go not only physically but also mentally, special cat intelligence toys are the ideal solution. So-called fumble boards are particularly popular.
These boards can be designed differently, but the principle is the same every time: you hide treats in one or more recesses. The cat can get the delicacies out by fiddling with its paw.
Depending on the specific product, more or less sophistication has to be demonstrated when playing with a fiddle.
Tip: Snack balls work in a similar way to fumbling boards . Such a ball in turn has small recesses that you can fill in a tasty way.
Your cat will then have to learn that the food can tumble out of the ball when it nudges it.
Is the scratching post a cat toy?
In a way, the scratching post is a cat’s toy, yes. But it also fulfills other important tasks: On the one hand, it serves to sharpen claws with its scratching areas; on the other hand, cats like to use the caves and bunk boards as sleeping or resting places. Play elements similar to cat fishing rods are attached to many scratching posts, with which your cat can let off steam even if you don’t have time to play together.
Make cat toys yourself – tips
There are countless ways to make exciting toys for cats from simple things.
Note: Be careful not to use any materials that are dangerous to your cat . Avoid:
Pointed, sharp small parts (needles, staples)
Objects that are too tiny (marbles, pearls, pebbles, plasticine
Metallic and synthetic materials (tinsel, foil, fabric threads)
How to play with your cat
Despite their supposedly regulated daily routine, cats like to have a lot of variety when playing . So always use a different toy to keep your kitty entertained and to challenge her.
And regardless of which cat toy you present to your cat: ensure variety through different “dosage forms”.
Example: Increase the difficulty of the “fishing game” by holding the cat’s tail upwards from time to time (even during a play unit) or moving it faster so that your cat has to jump higher or react more quickly.
Tip: By burying the cat toy in a drawer after the play unit, you prevent the “I-know-it-inside-out-and-bored-me-effect”.
The specific toy that only comes out from time to time remains attractive to the cat for longer .
What else you need to know about cat toys
Toys for cats rarely survive long . And in this context a long time is sometimes just a week. If you want to buy more robust cat toys, you have to rely on resistant, tear-resistant materials and high quality workmanship.
Basically, however, you shouldn’t expect to buy something durable with cat toys. In the heat of the moment, cats know no mercy – they tear up the toy mouse, the cat rod or the paper ball with absolutely no mercy.
Finally, one more elementary aspect: you should only give your cat toys with long straps to play with when a sane person is watching.
If the cat goes wild, there is a great danger of strangulation . This also applies to the classic ball of wool with which cats are often depicted in magazines. We also advise against letting the cat play with plastic bags. The velvet paw swallows small bits of it too easily.
Conclusion: You can make cats happy with toys
Cats love the game – and you love to watch your cat run around. So what could be more natural than regularly surprising the velvet paw with new highlights?
Bring variety to your kitty’s everyday life with exciting toys. Use classic hunting elements such as mice as well as cat intelligence toys such as fumbling boards. But: Always make sure that the cat toy does not pose a threat to your four-legged friend.
