Favourite Toys

meoklmrk91

I thought we could do a favourite toys thread as it can be a bit of a minefield at times, how long will it last? will they have any interest in it etc. They can be very expensive. Good points and bad points.

I'll start with my dog, he is a Boxer, loves to play and loves his toys. His favourite though is the Kong Wubba, which I got as part of a Kong Pack on special offer on zooplus. He tosses it the air and catches it, has lots of fun before taking it to bed and snuggling and chewing it. We play tug or war with it as well.

Good points: It is a lot more durable than it looks, although my fella isn't one to rip toys apart we do play tug of war and neither of us goes easy!
Bad points: Because its made of fabric it REALLY starts to stink after a while. Seems to do fine in the washing machine though.

SillyMangoX

My cats love the catnip cigars I got them in Harrods when I was out in London. They are just a brown fabric tube but they are stuffed with fresh catnip as opposed to the catnip scented crap you get over here that my cats wont touch. All it takes is one sniff and they drop, could spend a good 45 minutes sniffing and bunny kicking it. It still has the same effect as it had day one, its not losing its scent at all! They love it even more than just nip leaves! Only bad point is its absolutly sopping wet when Cream licks it for too long. He also loved the stag bar we got for the dog but its slightly too big for his little teeth! If the dog leaves it unattended he pounces straight away though

Dunny

My dog cant keep a toy for long, chews them to pieces. She also likes shoes and laces.

kylith

Mine don't play with toys, unless it's something that squeaks that they can 'kill'. When I got them first I stocked up on balls, frisbees, and the like only to be greeted with looks of terror when I threw a tennis ball. They've now learned not to fear the throwing of a ball, but they have no interest in chasing anything that isn't alive.

They love their Kongs though, and I got a couple of nylabones that get the odd chew sometimes too.

Heroditas

A cardboard box - any sort of cardboard box. The cats love them.

littlebug

my dog doesn't usually "do" toys with the exception of occasional rope tug play.
Balls are chewed to bits in minutes and kongs are cast aside once the food bit is gone. BUT we got her one of these last Christmas.

by lunchtime the head was opened up, the "squeak" gently removed and set aside (she does that with all toys with a squeak) and over a few days the brains/ head fluff was all removed resulting in much sweeping and hoovering. After that there were many of hours of chewing and playing and there were still intact bits that were played with right up til April. I think there's still a foot kicking about somewhere. She'll be getting another one this Christmas. She really loved that ostrich.

Here they are eyeballing each other

westies4ever

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ah now - thats just way too cute!

eirator

Big dog = big toys.

One favourite is a 3ft long 2ft diameter mooring bouy with a short length of very thick rope tied to the eye at the bottom. This devestational toy gets dragged by the rope at full tilt the 250yard lenght of our garden and back several times a day. The bouy was found on the beach after a storm and even the rope was a beach combing find, guess it would be a 200euro dog toy othewise.

Most favourite toy is ANY large football but they don't last more than about 2minutes :eek: before they're flat .

Pumpkinseeds

My cats love

Ping pong balls
The caps from milk bottles and 7up bottles
A large paper bag
Scratching posts(1 metre high one in kitchen)

Their favourite toys would be the foot long toy fish stuffed with fresh catnip that we got from a toy shop in uk and some catnip spicy micey toys we got from the same place.

meoklmrk91

Can anyone tell me where to get good quality catnip toys, any ones I've ever bought in the pet shop get a less than stellar reaction.

Pumpkinseeds

PM sent.

SillyMangoX

meoklmrk91 wrote: »

Can anyone tell me where to get good quality catnip toys, any ones I've ever bought in the pet shop get a less than stellar reaction.

I dont know if they sell online but if you are everin London go to Harrods and go to the top floor, ask at the counter for catnip cigars, they are amazing!!

Lawrence1895

My cat's favourite toy? That would be me, especially my feet

scudzilla

Brodi has always had loads of toys, and, because of this, IMO, it's stopped any chewing of things she shouldn't really be chewing.

She's turned the back room into her own play room!!

tk123

Ikea plush football and puppy! He holds them in his mouth for ours practicing being a retriever lol!!

alwaysadub

My kitten has loads of toys. His favourite thing to play with though is a bit of tinfoil squashed into a ball. He'd chase it for hours!

Pumpkinseeds

One of my cats loves those as well. It has to be a certain size though. If it isn't roughly the size of a marble he isn't interested:)

anniehoo

meoklmrk91 wrote: »

Can anyone tell me where to get good quality catnip toys, any ones I've ever bought in the pet shop get a less than stellar reaction.

+1 I've stopped buying "catnip" toys here as they get zero reaction. A friend brought 2 catnip triangle things back from the US about a year or so ago. Well i was surprised she didnt get stopped by customs the stuff in them was so potent. Mental reaction ...they got dribbled on and clawed to death though.Beanie was honestly off his chops for ages on these things, so funny.

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

PM sent.

If that's relating to this, could ya PM me your secret catnip supplier too thanks.:p

Must source some seeds and start growing my own!

Whispered

anniehoo wrote: »

If that's relating to this, could ya PM me your secret catnip supplier too thanks.:p

Must source some seeds and start growing my own!

And me please, anniehoo, is it easy to get seeds?

mymo

Me too, Toby cat needs to chill!

Back to toys, Oliver has a slipper of my daughters since he arrived here 4 years ago, had the pair but left one out in the snow and after best part of 3 weeks it was rotten when I found it, dread to think what would happen if this one went! He takes it to bed!
Only thing he ever fetched was a frisbee ring he got from secret santa on here last year.
Tiffi, anything, especially cat toys.

Cats, long fabric ribbon on stick thing, Toby loves small furry toys, Jake just too lazy now.
kitten, just about most things, particularly the dogs, she is currently jumping on Oliver's head while he tries to chew his nylabone, biting his tail and generally trying to get his attention. He is her fav toy!

anniehoo

Whispered wrote: »

And me please, anniehoo, is it easy to get seeds?

Apparently really easy online, and in bigger garden centres here, Newlands cross was mentioned in a post ive just read. I've just never looked as living in an apartment garden centres are places i just drive by which is such a shame

We should all get a batch and see how we get on growing it and its...ehh..."effects"!

mymo

anniehoo wrote: »

We should all get a batch and see how we get on growing it and its...ehh..."effects"!

Maybe, but don't want neighbourhood cats coming to my place to get high!
Will have to try it indoors, must look next time I visit garden centre.

Pumpkinseeds

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to name businesses, but here goes. I get my catnip toys from a shop called Funky Felines. They're in the UK but ship to Ireland. My guys love the catnip filled pollock fish and the spicy miceys. I think they're a family business and the catnip is organic.

The fish is about 11inches long and my chaps love to kick and throw it about as well as licking and sleeping on it. I got it a year ago and they can still smell the catnip on it. The spicy micey are packed in catnip so you can put the toys back in and keep it fresh. They have a website.

Vojera

My guinea pigs ignore any shop-bought toys so they're all home-made ones. And when I say home-made, I mean brown paper bags stuffed with hay, or toilet roll inserts, not much making in that! Sometimes we get them these cardboard bowl things (they're in the bird section of the pet shop, dunno what they're for) and they like throwing them in the air. We also made a fleece forest by tying long strips of fleece to a c&c grid and hanging it up and they LOVED running through it and hiding in it, but untying the strips, washing them and tying them back on is a lot of hassle.

We did get them some beds and snuggle sacs and snuggle tunnels from Cosy Cavies and they love them, but more for comfort than playing.

Pumpkinseeds

mymo wrote: »

Maybe, but don't want neighbourhood cats coming to my place to get high!
Will have to try it indoors, must look next time I visit garden centre.

I'm not sure if its true or not but I've often heard that if you plant catnip in your own garden it doesn't grow. Its sounds bizarre to me but who knows. I thought of planting it myself once but changed my mind. I've got a california lilac and a Chile lantern tree in my garden and for some reason both of my cats love them. They love to have a good head rub against them.

planetX

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

I'm not sure if its true or not but I've often heard that if you plant catnip in your own garden it doesn't grow. Its sounds bizarre to me but who knows. I thought of planting it myself once but changed my mind. I've got a california lilac and a Chile lantern tree in my garden and for some reason both of my cats love them. They love to have a good head rub against them.

No, I've got lots of catnip in my garden - you can buy small plants in the Spring as it won't always survive the winter. Buy a few plants and then take lots of cuttings, it's easy from those (if you can keep cats from eating them;)) I like to keep my cats well supplied, though they after they've had a session they become immune to it for a while. I actually credit a sunny day rolling in catnip with bringing peace between cats that didn't like each other. It's a bonding experience... and also really funny to watch:D

If you know anyone who grows Pampas grass, the flower heads make a really good cat or dog tease. But ping pong balls on a hard floor are still the best cat toy.

Pumpkinseeds

I'd agree that catnip is great for calming things down between cats. Our chap just about tolerates the chap who adopted us a few years ago, but he does like to assert his dominance over him. Given that he's almost twice the size of him doesn't help matters. I've found that giving them the catnip to play with if things turn a bit volatile, often diffuses the situation.

JustAThought

Love the catnip & guineapig magic fleecy garden stories!

My ( dogs) absolute favourite total obsession toy is a 6 foot IKEA red door draught SNAKE - her eyes go all glazey & she gies berserk with excitement when she sees me getting it out.

Otherwise it's my socks but only when on my feet, my Dad ( no matter what) or an empty coke/lemon northernmost with her dogfood - yumyumyum

eirator

One of the best toys we ever had for one of our cats was a clockwork spider. All it was was a small round tin box covered in black felt with big eyes stuck on it and a couple of legs. When you wound it up and let it go the legs would just go around and around propelling the toy. Great thing about it was it would keep going no matter how the cat attacked it untill it wound down. It was so effective that if one of our cats was out all we had to do was go to open the front door and wind the toy up and the cat would come running back to play. Other small clockwork toys have been favoured but never as much as the clockwork spider.

Did a google and found this pic of a some that are very similar

IvySlayer

My Westie Sam, his number 1 favourite thing is bottles!! As soon as he hears an empty plastic bottle he'll come racing for it. Throw it for him, he'll spend the next 10 minutes running around and 'killing' it!

Second favourite is his squeaky toy



Cats are different, rings of milk cartons keeps them occupied, as well as a straw!

scudzilla

Was in Supervalu the other day and spotted some coconuts, picked one up for Brodi..........BEST TOY EVER!!!

SillyMangoX

My cats love the coconut I got too, cream tries to use it as a football but fails miserably. Conckers on the other hand make him an expert footballer