Cat Toys on Amazon.ca

By C. Moffat

Today I browsed Amazon.ca for cat toys to see what things are available. And oddly enough discovered I could just make these toys myself.

First up is "Da Bird Go Cat Rod". It is quite literally a rod with string and some feathers attached to it. Not complicated at all. Indeed our cat Victoria has already been playing with something similar - except we used yarn instead of feathers. I did put a feather on the yarn at one point, but she ripped it off of there eventually. Since then I have replaced that with a heavier item because I felt the yarn was too light weight. You can see video of Victoria playing with the yawn version.

So my review for "Da Bird Go Cat Rod" is GO MAKE YOUR OWN! Don't waste $14.99 on some feathers on a string.

Note - If you stick the rod above a fan, the fan blows the yawn / feathers around like crazy and the cat goes nuts for it. It is basically an automated way of giving the cat some exercise. She runs back and forth doing "drive by clawing" at it.

Next up is cat springs, or as the official name on Amazon.ca goes "Ethical Pet Wide Durable Heavy Gauge Plastic Colorful Springs Cat Toy, 10-Pack"... Not sure how much she would play with that, but for only $4.90 it doesn't seem like a horrible price at least for a cat toy. I have some steel springs that just won't do the job. Curious to see what a cat would do with a brightly coloured plastic springs.

I have determined our cat is picky about what she chooses to play with. Yawn and feathers are awesome. Bits of crumpled plastic also good. Plastic springs? No idea.

Very similar to the plastic springs are "Mylar Balls", which is to say balls of scrunched up plastic. Again, this is something you can make yourself. You don't need to spend $5.99 on a pack of 4 mylar balls for the cat to have some fun. Leftover packaging will accomplish the same job.

I am not even going to bother showing a photo of the mylar balls. Complete waste of money.

Continuing down the list there is also various kinds of bouncy balls, bouncy mice on a dangling flexible rod (our cat would knock that over in the first 30 seconds), so-called "cat tunnels" for the cat to play in - as opposed to "a cardboard box" which apparently most cats love playing in,

And then we come to "OurPets 100-Percent North American Catnip Filled Banana Cat Toy A Peeling"... which is basically just plastic with catnip inside. I am pretty sure I could arrange that. When we got the cat one of the things we got came with a bonus bag of catnip. So we have the catnip, it is just a matter of how to use it.

When we got Victoria from the pet store they gave us a plush mouse chew toy which had apparently been in her cage with her. She has since lost all interest in that. Hasn't touched in more than twice since we first got her home. I am tempted to cut the mouse open, stuff it with catnip and resew it back up. She would probably go nuts for it then.

One thing I have that by accident she loves is plastic rats. I picked them up for Halloween a few years ago, and the cat loves those things. She bats them around, chews on them, etc. So if I wanted her to play with them even more I could just stick a hole in it, add catnip, seal the hole in a manner where can still smell it.

If you have suggestions for cat toys we should consider buying, or cat toys we can make ourselves please post your suggestions in the comment section below.