Cat Owner's Manual › Chapter 3: Daily Interaction With Your Cat › Cat Exercise and Play ›

Cat Games, Toys and Amusements

Because of their innate curiosity, cats can turn virtually any household item into a game, toy, or amusement. Sometimes, such play can lead to the destruction of valuable personal property. To prevent this, try any of the following activities.

  • One of the best cat toys is a piece of string tied securely to a stick (see Fig. A). Users can amuse the cat while remaining seated in a chair.
  • Place Ping-Pong balls in an empty bathtub and let your cat bat them around (see Fig. B). This game is particularly exciting for kittens and younger cats.
  • Some felines enjoy exploring paper bags and boxes. Avoid bags with handles (cats can catch their necks in the loops) and never risk suffocation with plastic bags.
  • Cats will stalk and pursue a point of light played along the walls and floor of a darkened room. Try laser pointers and/or flashlights.
  • A window perch positioned within sight of an outdoor bird feeder provides endless passive entertainment (Fig. C).
Games for Cats

cautionCAUTION: Avoid play objects that are small enough to be swallowed, and don't allow unsupervised play with anything incorporating string, ribbon, twine, etc. Check store-purchased toys for pieces that might detach and be ingested. It is also wise to watch a cat as it plays with a new toy, to see if any unexpected problems arise.

expert tipEXPERT TIP: When playing with a kitten or cat, always direct its playful aggression toward toys. Never allow them to pounce or smack at your hands or other extremities. They may get the message that launching attacks on unsuspecting humans is acceptable behavior.

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Chapter 3: Daily Interaction With Your Cat

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If your cat is a mature, laid-back, “been-there-done-that” kind of guy (Nemo thinks he's seen it all), he/she may not react to any of the activities mentioned above unless he/she is totally bored. Only when I trigger his hunting instinct he gets excited. To him, playing=hunting. No respectable prey would be batted away and then come back for more like a ping-pong ball or a string. A laser beam makes even less sense to him. He looks for the source and that’s it. He knows it’s you. The only thing that gets him going is fishing-rod type of toy. I’d move the toy as a real prey would—run quickly from cover to cover or hides behind some barriers. I try to move the prey away just before he reaches it. It gets Nemo nuts. This, however, is a relatively slow game. You will see a lot of stalking and waiting. You will also see intensive charging and jumping when he/she decides to go for it. It is a mind game between you and your cat. Also, there’s a commercial toy called Da Bird. It imitates the movement of a bird very well. It gets Nemo crazy in an instant.

purred by Susie & Nemo on Apr 17, 2008 AT 12:02 pm PDT
3 people found this comment helpful.
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Quirk BooksThe Cat Owner's Manual is a basic guide to cat care.
The book was written by a celebrated veterinarian and an acclaimed author. It provides cat owners with well-researched and helpful information presented in a lighthearted manner. The creators chose to write the book in a style similar to what you'd find in "operating instructions" for a car or computer. Of course they--and we--respect the fact that our beloved pets are not products or machines!