Why buy cat toys

my cat likes paper bags. cuddling with me. the window. mirrors. opening cupboards and snooping inside. closets. climbing bookshelves and blinds and curtains. but the only things that i bought him that he really likes to play with are scratch boards, scratch post, cat bed, and cat tree. from past experience with my late cat, she liked anything that belonged to me and has my smell on it. those shiny ribbon christmas bows, yarn, blankets, pillows, stuffed toys, boxes.

empty kleenex boxes..toilet paper rolls..balled up paper..hair ties.. shoestrings with shoe still attached. the one cat likes to put his front paws in the kleenex box and slide across the rug.

EXACLYYYY!!!!!!!!,,why the hekk wasting money on stuf for the cat when sometimes people dont have their own deodorant.... #$%&%^

I don't have a cat..but when I did I bought one of those cat toys that look like a fishing pole. It was so much fun to play with the cat with. The kids knew it was the cats toy. plu sthe cat knew he could go to town and have a blast with that toy without anyone topping him.

Moomin has a real thing for *attacking* my partner's socks. He will grab them and bat them around before picking them up in his mouth and dragging them around. He also likes playing with the toilet roll and I have caught him pulling it to pieces before now

Cats are a lot like children, you buy them expensive toys and they play with the box! My cats like to run off with my hair ties (you know those things that you use instead of rubber bands...they love the ones that are made out of stretchy knit fabric.) I haven't found their hiding place yet, but I figure they must have between 60 and a hundred of those things stashed some where! Khuay (the little fiend in my avatar) loves to shred the last few paper towels on the roll. He loves to shred paper and cardboard boxes too. Also if I have little pieces of fake fur laying around they will haul them off and play with them by the hour. Buy cat toys? I bring home a toy or two that I think they might like and they won't touch it with a fifty foot pole. The dogs end up playing with it and eventually either eating it or leaving the soggy little pieces all over the house. Oops, there is two toys they love. Bill my BF bought one of them for them for Christmas one year; it was a cat nip mouse that rattles. It now looks rather like a piece of cat poop now...I haven't the heart to toss it out. The other is a Ken doll head that they found after my daughter and her family moved out. They love it and will make sure that when they finish with it they leave it so it looks like a mouse laying on the floor.

I think my cat's a snob! He won't play with homemade toys, only store-bought ones. Sigh... I have tried giving him paper balls, bits of string, cardboard rolls etc but he turned up his nose at EVERYTHING, until I gave up and purchased a cat toy from the pet store. He accepted it immediately and plays with it everyday! And if it accidentally goes under the sofa where he can't reach it, he will meow and meow until I get it out for him!

I can soooooo agree with you here, dawn. Even though catnip toys can be made at home with a little sewing and some scraps of felt and dried catnip. Shoot, you can even grow the catnip and dry it yourself. My cats go through catnip toys weekly so I'm constantly making new ones. Got too dang expensive buying them on a weekly basis. All 3 cats, even the 10yr. old one, attack them with tooth and nail till they are just blobs of felt. lol Move any appliance in our kitchen and you will find at LEAST 13 bottle caps or plastic milk rings under/behind them. My daughter learned quick to play with her marbles in her room with door shut or she loses half of them. (sorry lori about Tigger taking yours) Tigger loves to ambush her marbles and will sneak up and scatter them before anyone can stop him. My recycle bin gets raided regularly as well for toys to play with. lol Tigger's the culprit yet again there. I swear, for a feral cat, he gets into sooooo much mischief it's unreal. He's tamed but will never completely lose his feral ways. Ya know what, though...I wouldn't trade him in for all the money in the world. -falls off chair after being pushed- grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........TIGGER!!!!!!!!!!!!

we picked up a box at Sams and the cats are loving it, its only open on one end so the cats get inside and then do the "trap door spider" coming out to attack other cats

I can't agree with you more. You should see all the cat toys I bought just lying on the floor untouched, the kitty condo I bought last year...do my darlings play with them.......nope...instead, they like snoozing in a cardboard box I fixed up, like chasing crumbled up paper, bat around my pens or that cardboard empty roll of paper towels..so nope have resolved NOT to buy toys for my "poor" deprived darlings.

people don't give toys to pets. it is the first time i have heard of it. ha ha. anyways, you give me idea to buy or make toys for my pets

My cats love those milk rings. Any kind of little stuffed toy ends up in the water bowl for some strange reason. Crumpled up foil or paper and empty boxes are always a winner. I grow catmint fresh so they have an endless supply of that. Good topic thanks!

Boy do I agree with you on this one 100%. My momma kitty Sky will sit and wait at you feet when she see a new gallon jug of milk come in the house. She has to have the red ring tie that binds the top to the jug while in shipping. But once that seal is broke and you don't need that ring she needs it on the floor so she can have hours and hours of fun batting it aroung and carring it in her mouth room to room, ON of just let one of the others try to get one of her prised rings and there will be a war in the house. I have spent all kinds of money on traditional toys but the stupid funny things like the milk ring are her favortie so why spsnd the money.

Cats are not really easy to handle especially when they want to eat or play.. but why buy cat toys? because same as humans we need to buy toys when were still baby's for us to be satisfied, same as cats because they are living this. so they needed to be satisfied also.. Cats touch things inside the house and even break it. to refrain it from happening better just to make them satisfy rather than spending more money for the damages..

My cats don't do much playing anymore. They're 8 and 6 years old, so not really ancient but I guess they think they're too old to be kittens anymore. They used to play with the plastic off the milk gallon. My older cats does love to sleep in boxes. Plus some of the other things you mentioned like strings and such. However I used to buy them those fuzzy mice, they loved those. I stopped buying them though when the cats ripped the fur off the mouse within moments of opening the package!!

I don't buy cat toys, I knot an old sock or make a ball out of left over yard on a string, a brown paper bag will entertain for hours.

I always buy cat toys for my cat at Christmas other than that they have woolen pom poms that the children have made or even a card board box with a ping pong ball in it that they hit around the box.I find the most basic things that are free to make as they have more fun for hours.