Our Boots is quite active and loves to get behind chairs and under chairs and peek out and then leap out at non-expecting toy mice. He has quite a few fake mice in many different colors, orange and green,yellow and gray and white and black.
I recently got him a white mouse with a feathery tail. He has loss it already, as mom said he races around with it in his mouth and then laid down on the floor and played the cat and mouse game, of batting it here and there.
So I would say Boot's favorite toy is his mice.
He has balls with bells and stuffed animals, and the plastic rings off of plastic milk jugs, and cardboard rolls. But give him a mouse and the entertainment he provides is priceless.
Luna my youngest cat's favorite toy seems to be leafs. She brings them in from the garden and attacks and plays with them inside.
She has a load of of other cat toys, but the leafs seems to be on top of the list. Another human toy she plays quite a lot with are my children's swing ball. She jumps the ball, bear attack it and chase it around. My cats have a scratching post with a mouse attached to it, the mouse gets quite a lot of attention as well. She also loves playing with marbles and bouncy balls.
Her other most favorite toy are the other cats, she can play with them for hours, and then the fall asleep curled up in a heap.
My cat usually ignores toys that are store bought. She likes boxes, paper bags, ribbons, laser pointers, shoelaces ,yarn, crumpled pieces of paper. I've tried the catnip mice but she's not interested. The last thing I brought home that she was excited about and played with for a while was the outer box from one of those industrial size family boxes of Pop Tarts from Walmart that has like 45 Pop Tarts in it. Apparently it's the perfect size for a small adult tabby cat to sit in.
My cat loves chasing paper balls. If I scrunch up a piece of paper into a ball and throw it he will run after it, catch it, play with it, bite it and kick it. I make balls of different sizes from very small to the size of a ping pong ball. When I make several at once and throw them all at the same time, he goes crazy. Yes, it does make a bit of a mess in the living room, but at least these there is no cost involved, just any old scrap of paper will do.
Do try it with your cat if you have not already done so.
03-23-2013, 10:28 PM, (This post was last modified: 03-23-2013, 10:29 PM by trishgl.)
Unfortunately Sheldon's favorite toys are our curtains in the kitchen and my $100 laptop bag. This is the first time I got a pet cat since leaving my parent's house. I've had mostly dogs and I've never had a cat that was enamored with curtains and bags. I've been trying different methods to make him stop but no luck as of yet.
:-) Well, I'm not sure if this can actually be considered a toy or not... but our cat is happiest when there is a cardboard box to play with or climb into. I know I used to hear that kids after prefer boxes at Christmas than what was in them. My daughter always preferred the contents of the boxes, but not so with the kitty cat... she'll choose the box itself every time!
In addition to that, she likes the tracker balls in the tube "thingies"... not sure what they're called, and she likes a battery operated toy where a fake mouse tail scoots in and out. Never was much interested in the things the stores sell as "cat toys."
We bought our cat a "scratching post" which was embedded with catnip. She sniffed it once and then never looked at it again. We never really bought her toys because we found that she took no interest in them. She did, however, play with pieces of string if you dangled them in front of her. I suppose that would be her favourite toy. She did once find a cork from a bottle and had great fun chasing it. She spent most of the evening running around after it and playing with it in the corridor. When she wanted to scratch something, she would use the carpets on the stairs and the ends of the bed. Luckily, we are not particularly houseproud so it did not bother us particularly. It just made those things look rather worn out but caused no serious problems. We put tape over the parts of the carpet she scratched but she would just choose another spot and start using that instead. Unlike other cats, she did not use curtains at all despite having easy access to them.
A friend's cat likes to play with rolled up balls of newspaper. She pushes them around with her paws and chases them.
My cat's never actually been a big fan of toys. We've got her many, many toys, but she always ignores them in favor of laying down and sleeping, or going outside. There have been a few stuffed animals here and there that she'd attack or cuddle with, but beyond that she's never had many toys. However, she will play with string. She doesn't actively chase it, but if it goes right in front of her she'll attack it and watch it. She'll also attack your hands through the banister when you're going downstairs. It's kinda funny, really. Just pop your hand out, and she'll bat at it. Not in a "I'm going to tear your liver out and eat it right in front of you" sort of way, it's more of a playful way. She'll sometimes bite it, too, but never hard or often. Her claws, even while playing, will give your hands quite the beating, however. It's especially fun when she gets one of her claws stuck under your nails and tears it away.
We have two cats. One plays with very few toys. She'll chase a string for a bit if you wiggle it at her, but becomes disinterested very easily. About the only toy she's ever played with of all the ones we've given her is a butterfly that has crinkly plastic in the wings. Whenever that makes it's way out from under the furniture she'll go after it, but nothing else!
Our other kitty is much more curious and likes to play with a variety of toys. She just moved in a year ago and immediately took up playing with toys our other girl has been ignoring forever! She's a hoot to watch....really gets into it and will toss toys up into the air then chase them, or get all four feet hooked into something and then go at it with her teeth. I do have to say her favorite toy isn't a toy at all....I'd left a tennis ball out one day and she discovered it. I took it away and thought I'd hidden it. Nope. After the second attempt to keep it from her I gave up. Now, it's her favorite.
My cats will play with pretty much anything, it depends on their moods. Through the years, they have played with, and destroyed plush toys, catnip toys, balls, string toys, scratching toys... They also like home made toys, like boxes, yarn, balls of paper, bags... Boxes and other toys that they can crawl into seem to be their favorites. They also go crazy for catnip toys, unfortunately they tear them apart very quickly. My older cat goes crazy for my hair bands. When she was a kitten, she used to climb on the back of the chair I was sitting on, and chew on my hair band from behind. When she steals a hair band from me, she get's a bit aggressive about it and won't give it back, so I have to have extra just for her. She also likes socks and wooly things, but she's not that serious about them.