Tag: cats

* Originally written by me for katzenworld.co.uk

What better way to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year by giving your cat a festive toy! At least, Dirk can’t think of a better way to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas came a little bit early this year when we received the Webbox Festive Pom Pom. They come in either red or purple with festive gold details as well! Let’s see if Dirk was interested….

Dirk’s inner football player came out once again, though he doesn’t actully chase the Pom Pom quite as much as the football toy. He’ll actually really only chase it once: I throw it through the living room for him and he runs after it only to then grab it and kick it about. The cat version of fetch 😉

 

 

The texture of the Pom Pom is very similar to a ball of yarn and as we all know many cats love playing with balls of yarn (of course we need to keep an eye on our cats when they play with any types of string toys, such as a ball of yarn, as they can actually choke on it or it can get stuck in their intestines). Dirk is actually not one of those cats who play with balls of yarn! Yes, there are toys he doesn’t like!! The good news is that he does like the Webbox Pom Pom. I’m sure your cat will love pouncing and kicking it and they will provide some Christmas entertainment for the family 🙂

 

Now once your cat gets their paws on this Pom Pom they probably won’t let it go for quite a while. As you can see Dirk is certainly not about to give up 🙂

I mentioned that Dirk is actually not that big a fan of balls of yarn. Somehow rolling a ball of yarn around the house isn’t his thing. Maybe because there’s seemingly no end to the yarn! I don’t know, but anyway, if your cat doesn’t like them either then this Pom Pom is still worth a try. You can buy this toy online, but you can also find it in your local supermarket or pet shop. Webbox toys are sold by many retailers which gives you the bonus of seeing and touching the toy for yourself before buying it.

For people looking for a more interactive Christmas toy for their cats: Webbox also has a Festive Teaser Wand. Read all about it in my next post!

* Originally written by me for katzenworld.co.uk

Dirk has one stylish new toy he wants to show off: a handmade, black&white pyramid by Minoumi.

This pyramid is almost as stylish as me 🙂

This is a really lovely and also very well-thought-out cat toy. The pyramid shape means the toy tends to roll and bounce a lot when your cat plays with it and cats love toys that move around. The toys are handmade using quality materials, which means the Pyramid is strong enough to withstand a lot of kicking, scratching and gnawing. Which is of course exactly what Dirk likes to do with it!

There is one other reason this toy is absolutely fantastic & it will make most cats go wild… It’s catnip of course!
And if you’ve previously read some of the toys Dirk tested you’ll know he goes mad.

As you will have read in Oliver & Rennie’s previous review of the Minoumi toys, this is not a toy your cat will want to share.
Not with other cats, but not with people either…

ALL MINE

My mischievous little Dirk sometimes teases me as if he wants to play together, but you can forget about it.

Really, I was only joking before. You can play with it too!!

If black&white is not your taste, don’t worry. The Minoumi toys are available in different styles and if you don’t like pyramids they have differently shaped toys too 🙂 I think Dirk will put Minoumi’s Scandinavian style Playing Roll on his birthday wish list!

* Originally written by me for katzenworld.co.uk

By now you all know Dirk loves toys he can kick vigorously! He likes to chase toys too – the fishing rod style toys with feathers drive him mad – so I was quite curious if he would chase his new GiGwi PetDroid Interactive Mouse…

I was a little sceptical myself at first, as these toys usually make a very annoying buzzing-like sound when the mouse moves around. The mouse just runs straight ahead and by the time it reaches the wall I’m usually the one walking over to turn it in a different direction (yes, my cat trained me well LOL).

This one is a little different! I really quite like that the texture of the mouse is not a soft and smooth one, but a bit rough with different textures and fabric lengths. One of the best things about it, though, is that it makes squeaking sounds much like a real mouse. This makes the experience a bit more real and when you switch the mouse on and it starts squeaking, it triggers hunting behaviour in Dirk. He was instantly curious!

Dirk does not actually stalk the mouse much – more on that later – but he loves pouncing and of course kicking it. He seems surprised that the toy does not always respond in the same way when he pounces it: sometimes it stops moving and other times it moves in a different direction.

The front wheel of the mouse can turn so the mouse moves in different directions. This unpredictability helps keep you cat interested for longer. It also stops moving when your cat touches it again so it really tries to mimic a real mouse’s behaviour. I guess it’s the closest our indoor kitties are going to get to actually getting a mouse – unless you have real mice willing to risk their lives by venturing inside your home!

The best part of playing with this toy, for Dirk at least, seems to be picking it up and tossing it away or kicking it.

In the early stages of the game you can of course easily play with the mouse together. Dirk goes through the phases of being curious about the squeaky noise first and observe from a distance. I then pounce the mouse or drag it in a different direction by its tail and the fact that the mouse keeps moving and squeaking keeps Dirk very interested. Inevitably he’ll go into hunting mode as he cannot resist having a go himself. I sometimes try and grab the mouse by its tail when he’s playing with it to get Dirk to go after it, but as you can see he usually does not want to let go of it…

The packaging rightly recommends using the toy on a flat surface and I think laminated or tiled floors (or similar) would work best. I have low pile carpet, but when Dirk is playing with the mouse the wheels seem to pick up some threads and slow down a bit. On smooth surfaces you should not have this issue and your cat may even stalk his prey 😉

The GiGwi melody chaser mouse is available via online pet shops (worldwide) as well as in selected physical stores (UK & US).