Cats benefit from consistent, interactive play activities and movement, just like dogs and humans.
If a cat is bored with the same toy, you should replace it every few days to keep your cat happy. Different cats prefer different types of games so don’t play rough-and-tumble games or tease your cat by moving your hands or feet around the duvet or carpet.
Bonding With Your Cat
Games with your cat are a fun and easy way to enrich your cat life, give suggestions and strengthen the bond you share. Interactive playing with cats is not only fun, it can provide valuable exercise for cats of all ages too. Playing can help shy or nervous cats gain confidence, and hearty play sessions are a great way to help your cats make the transition to a new home.
Cat play is a good tool for bonding, socializing and training. A few short daily sessions are better than a long session because they mimic your cat’s normal activity patterns. The following infographic explains how to pick up cat toys and play with cats, from kittens to senior cats.
How To Play With Your Cat Without Toys
There are many ways to play with your cat that don’t include toys. Toys can be improvised to not only ignite hunting behavior, but also to encourage the cat to move.
Playing is a positive way for your cat to release negative energy and aggression. Interactive play lets your cat improve its hunting skills, and movement games help your cat maintain a healthy weight. Regular play sessions help your cat burn energy, feel satisfied and maintain a healthier weight.
Best Cat Toys For Exercise
The best toys are the ones your cat wrestles with, like a stuffed animal the size of your cat, where it grabs it by the front foot, bites it and kicks it. Dragging toys across the floor will encourage your cat to pounce on them, and throwing them at her will give her more practice in chasing them. By pulling toys by strings across the floor or stopping with animals, you can encourage them to stalk and pounce as if they were in the wild.
Do not lift the toy so high that you encourage your cat to jump up and down. Give your cat time to catch and bite the stuffed animal with its paws until it becomes frustrated and loses interest.
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Try giving your cat a magic toy that cats love to play with their humans. This is a great way to show them what proper play looks like. A great idea is also to give your kitten a toy to wrestle, kick and eat with such as a stuffed sock. A neat toy for playing with the cat is a tangle of strings that can be torn into small pieces of fabric and swallowed by the fabric.
Cardboard Cat Toys
Cats need a variety of toys, including those with which they can play alone and those with which one can play with them. You may want to give your cat with items she can explore such as a cardboard box, a paper shopping bag or a pack of paper toys to encourage your cats to examine the various holes with their paws.
How to Stimulate Your Cat With Electronic Cat Toys
Cats are natural hunters, so it makes sense that the best way to keep your cat moving and playing is to stimulate its predatory instincts. Be sure to have a variety of toys that simulate or imitate prey that a cat would hunt, like mice. Small motorized, remote-controlled, battery-powered mice are great for catching the attention of your cats and getting them to stalk, fall and hunt.
By providing your cat with various toys, you can determine their preferences. Cats are naturally oriented towards lonely play with objects such as toys, yarn balls, paper bags, boxes and rolls of paper. Toys with unpredictable movements, which simulate or imitate the movements of prey animals, are particularly exciting for cats.
Furry Mice Cat Toys
Cats like to stalk, hunt and pounce on things that move like prey like toys with feathers or flexible sticks that can be dangled or moved. In general, cats seem to enjoy small toys like balls and fake mice.
Cats that cannot move away from a locked toy can participate in this game. You can run away from the toy, stalk across the room or duck behind a piece of furniture, all of which are better suited to falling.
Encourage your cat to play by using interactive toys that mimic prey like toy mice. You can pull a toy mouse off the ground or wave a spring rod in the air. Or you can make it yourself with cat toys from common household items.
Cat Play Aggression
Your cat can become aggressive during the game and stop interacting. If your cat is frustrated and stops playing, you may act in response to its unfulfilled urges. You can redirect the aggression of the cats by throwing things or toys.
My Kitten Play Bites Too Much
It is cute to see a small kitten twitching its fingers or trying to bite you with its tiny teeth, but when it grows into a cat it is not so cute. Allow your cat to catch prey at the end of its hunt during the game sessions to satisfy its natural hunting instincts. It is difficult to educate an adult cat from this behaviour, but in order to prevent it, you should tell a visitor of your cat when to use the toy and when not to visit her fingers and toes.
If you have any questions on how to play with your cat, I’m happy to listen and help you bond better with your furry feline friend.