My cat is rapidly approaching fifteen years old, but no one seems to have told him he’s meant to have slowed down at this point. Oscar is as playful as he has been throughout his adult life, and unsurprisingly all of his toys are starting to look quite tired.
His favorite playthings have always been soft mice (with or without catnip) and feathers on sticks. So I decided to give a few very different toys a try with him, to see what he thought. And I was really surprised by how some of them were received. The one I thought he’d love the most, he seemed to be actually a little afraid of. The one I thought would fall flat, he adored. It goes to show it really is worth trying a variety of things, doesn’t it!
Please note that I have added affiliate links to the products Oscar tested out today. If you click on one it won’t impact the price you pay if you decide to buy it, but it will give a small percentage of the sale to this site (thereby allowing Oscar to buy more toys to test!).
Stacking Ball Toy
This was the toy I was the most skeptical about. In the photos it looked a bit like the toys my toddlers’ used to play with, with its big sticker eyes and colorful balls.
Oscar does have a toy ball that he’ll occasionally play with, but it has never particularly held his focus. Even the ball toys we’ve tried previously with bells inside weren’t a big draw for him.
When it came out of the box it seemed flimsy, and it took some brute force to connect the pieces together, which I was worried might break it. However, it held up well and once the balls were slotted into place it actually looked nicer than I’d expected.
So I fetched Oscar, who looked at it with great disdain until I pushed the little balls. And as soon as he saw the motion the cogs started whirring and within a very short period of time he was off.
It was really clear that this ball stacker kept Oscar very engaged and he returned to it several times once I’d set it up. Which is always a very good sign!
Oscar’s Score – 9/10
I deducted one Oscar point because I think he could have stayed and played for longer, but honestly, this was a real winner.
Large Puzzle Food Toy
I don’t think I’ve ever given Oscar a food puzzle toy before, but they make sense as an appealing item for him as he’s very food motivated. I started with the full setup for this, even though the suggest not adding the central sections in to begin with. The reason I did this is I felt you could still make it easy for him to begin by putting little pieces of kibble in easy to reach places around the outside.
Oscar definitely had his interest peaked by the fact food was involved, but I don’t think he used it as intended.
The main issue here is the size of the holes in the toy. I think they give the cat the impression that he could get his head into it if he wanted to, and in fact I think of one occasion Oscar did manage to do so. However, he seemed to either understand watching me put my hand in that he could use his paw to help, or it was a coincidence!
Either way, he did try to use his paw but got bored of the effort required quite quickly.
Oscar’s Score – 6/10
Nina Ottoson Leaf Puzzle Food Toy
I’d say this puzzle toy was better received than the larger one. I also started off each, beginning by literally placing the kibble where he could directly eat it, then slowly moving the covering flap over the top of them so he had to nudge them out of the way.
I gave this one medium marks on Oscar’s behalf, but actually I’ll come back and review it in a few weeks time because I can really see the potential here.
After just one session he’d started to work out how to move the leaf flaps and push the little ladybirds around, and there is a lot of scope for making it increasingly challenging.
Oscar’s Score – 7.5/10
Flapping Bird
I had a lot of confidence that Oscar was going to love this little bird. And it was only mildly frustrating to find that I had to plug it into a socket for a while to get it charged up before we could play.
It comes with a sachet of catnip, but I decided to give it to him catnip free to begin with to see whether it was actually the motion of the toy he was going to enjoy or the catnip (which I know full well he enjoys already!)
I pulled it off the plug and passed it to him on the kitchen floor. He stared for a while, and basically looked a bit worried. Then wandered off.
So I popped in the catnip sachet, and took him into the living room where he’d been testing the rest of the toys. And set the bird off again.
To make it flap I’m not sure what you’re meant to do, but I basically had to give it a bit of a bash! Oscar was just as wary, didn’t seem to be able to smell the catnip inside and then once again, turned and wandered out of the room.
Oscar’s Score – 1/10
The bird I was so confident would be his favorite thing, fell flat. But in fairness the thing I thought he’d be least interested in was without a doubt his favorite. It just goes to show it’s worth trying things you think they might not like as well as ones you think they will, cats always find a way to surprise you!
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