Tag Archives: cat toy

Cat and Mouse Toy

My wife ordered a cat toy recently and it arrived Monday. The actual name of the toy is not on the box. It just says “Dougez Cat.”

I asked my wife who she ordered it from but she couldn’t remember. The closest I could find was here on Amazon but there is no mention of “Dougez.” I’m sure it is made in China and whoever is selling it puts their name on it.

It has three speeds and shuts off after ten minutes. I turned it on using the slowest speed and watched to see what our cats would do.

The toy is suppose to promote exercise but our cats seemed to take a more passive interest, especially Chris who played with it while lying down.

I would not call this toy a great success but it is not a failure either. After two days Chris still sometimes asks for it to be turned on so he can play with it while lying down. In terms of health benefits though, it’s right up there with John Madden Football.

Friskies Pull ‘n Play with Substitute Treats

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I wrote about the Friskies Pull n Play toy a few years ago (read post here) but that toy disappeared not long after that post and I recently bought a new one. This time I skipped the included treats and put in treats that I consider to be much healthier. I realize that that toy is like a computer printer, sold with the intent of making big money on the refills, so Purina will not be happy with me.

The Pull ‘n Play comes with Friskies Party Mix, which is a favorite of many cats, and some kind of string-like treat, which most cats don’t care too much about. Both treats, in my opinion, are not healthy options so instead I filled the toy with Instinct Raw Boost Mixers. This is a freeze-dried, raw cat food that I believe is a much healthier option than most commercial treats out there and our cats love them. They also love a similar freeze-dried, raw cat food called Stella and Chewy’s, which has the advantage of coming in larger sizes that are cheaper per ounce but the morsels tend to be too big and flakey for use in this toy.

There is one drawback to substituting the treats; They don’t fall out as easily as the intended treats, but that may not always be a bad thing. My plan is to fill it up before going away on vacation. I tend to worry that something may happen to the cat sitter and having a treat dispenser might just help a little if they don’t get fed. If I will use it for entertainment then I might want to make the hole a little bigger. Perhaps with a file or large drill I can increase the hole size just a little and all will be right with the world.

Here is a video of my first attempt. Of course Chris dominates the toy just like he did with the catnip.

What do you think? Have you tried this toy? Have you tried Instinct or Stella and Chewey’s?

Hypnotizing a Cat or How Men Don’t Read Directions

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I know that men are stereotyped as people who don’t read directions and I certainly don’t want to promote that idea but when we got our Jackson Galaxy cat toys I did not read the directions. In fact, I opened the first one without even reading the name on the package. If I had I would have saw it was a “Ground Prey Wand.” “Ground” being the key word. If I read the label I would have known what to do right away. But alas, I didn’t read it, so I started swinging it around in the air like a crazy person with only mixed results.

I didn’t post the first video I took because I eventually read the package and realized I was supposed to drag it along the ground. Part of the video was a bit funny so I thought I would share it here.

What do you think of Floki?

Petmate Jackson Galaxy Air Prey and Ground Prey Wand Cat Toys

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Last month we won a couple of Jackson Galaxy cat toys from Petmate and the Sweet Purrfections blog. They arrived recently to the delight of our boys.

One of the toys is called a Ground Prey Wand and is designed to be dragged along the ground to simulate a small animal, like a mouse. The other is an Air Prey Wand which, you guessed it, simulates a bird. (I added product links to Amazon instead of Petmate partially because I am an affiliate but mostly because the prices are less there.)

They seemed to like both toys, although the ground prey toy seemed to take a little longer to figure out.

The air prey toy, on the other hand, seemed to pull at their instincts right away.

Both toys did get their attention and I think it is good to have have a variety of toys so they don’t get bored with any one toy in particular.

What do you think?

Pull ‘n Play Cat Toy

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Two weeks ago we bought two cat toys from Friskies called Pull ‘n Play. The toy is like a Weeble. which they call Wobbert. It is weighted on the bottom and it wobbles. It is shaped like an animal but I’m not sure what it is supposed to be, perhaps a bear. The head twists off so you can put treats inside. It comes with a bag of Friskies Party Mix and it also has a string-like treat that you thread through the ears. There is a small hole at the bottom so treats will fall out when it wobbles just right.

When we introduced it to our cats, Chris dominated the toy. As expected, he was the first, and still only, cat to figure out how the toy works. I recorded the first few minutes of them playing with it but later, after the camera was put away, I watched Chris wobble it and then immediately look for treats. Sometimes treats would come out and sometimes they wouldn’t but he was smart enough to expect it.

Later we brought the second toy to Rose’s sister, Felice. Her cats were different. The were more interested in the string and our cats were after the treats.

I used to buy the Party Mix as a treat for our cats and they loved it. Here is a video from a few years ago related to those treats.

I will say that I stopped buying those treats because I wanted our cats to have a more healthy treat. I now give them a raw, freeze-dried cat food that I use as treats. The brands vary because they love everything I have tried so I buy whatever is a good deal. Currently, I am feeding them Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw. After the Party Mix was gone I put some of the raw treats in the toy. Even though they love it when I give it to them as a treat, they mostly ignored it in the toy. Cats can really be frustrating at times.

Has anybody else tried this toy or another treat toy?

This Toy is the Cat’s Meow

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A little over a year ago we introduced our cats to the “Cat’s Meow” cat toy (read about it here). They loved that toy but we were not the best at remembering to take it out and turn it on. We ended up giving it to someone with more cats than us.

This Christmas we decided to buy them another one and hopefully be better about using it. Frankie was not around for the last one and found it quite fascinating, as did Chris. Puck missed out on the first round of playing because he was hiding under the bed, but he did get a paw in there a little later.

Chris had it figured out pretty quickly and was under the cover working at the mechanism.

I got a nice Christmas gift too. It is a Canon EOS-M digital camera that I took the video and photograph with. All in all, it was a very nice Christmas

The Cat’s Meow

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One of my favorite customers came to see me at work last week with a present for me. It was an electronic cat toy called “Cat’s Meow.” He said he ended up with two and since he knew I had cats thought I would have a use for it.

It took me a couple of days to get batteries but I finally got around to putting it together last weekend. It is a fairly simple concept yet it is amazing that nobody had thought of this before. The toy consists of a motor that turns an arm back and forth around a circle. At the end of the arm is a small ball and attached to that is a tail, or at least what passes as a tail. The mechanism is then covered with a round cloth so that only the tail sticks out.

I put it on the ground on the patio and as soon as I turned it on Chris and Puck both became very interested in it. I started it on fast but soon found that slow worked better. I got out my video camera and recorded them playing with it for almost ten minutes before going inside. I forgot about it an came back twenty minutes later to turn it off and saw Chris and Puck were both still there playing with the new toy.

I would give the Cat’s Meow a thumbs up for holding Chris’s attention for that long but it remains to be seen whether it can withstand the punishment of two cats. Below is a portion of the video I mentioned.