List Of Games To Play With Our Kitties

[Letta]

So reading a lot of threads here I noticed that we are a few to have high energy cats that always want to play and at that to play new games. There is a lot of recommendation lists on what type of toy your cat might like, and I though it could be cool to build a list of different ways to play with those toys (or with random household objects). I mean I probably played 1000 different games with my Luna (ok maybe not a 1000..) and sometimes I struggle to find her a new game to play to. So what about we all post some of the games we play with our kitties (as many or as often as you want to post) and then I will make a list and share with you?
For example, my cat like playing with a sheet: I can put a toy under it and move it a bit (she loves that), or building a tent with it my extending it into two chairs, or lately she loves when I slowly pull the sheet up a chair ect..
I will work on my list and add it later

 

[abyeb]

Charlie's favorite games:
- anything with wand-type toys (chasing them, leaping in the air to catch his "prey)
- the sheet game like Luna likes, but sometimes I play it with a carpet
- I toss a ping pong ball or catnip mouse into one of his boxes, and Charlie dives in after it to remove the toy from the box
- food puzzles
- I put pieces of kibble on his perches for Charlie to jump to retrieve
- playing iPad games (Charlie's favorite is magic piano)
- playing with his automatic cat toys (Petlinks Mystery Motion Concealed Electronic Motion Cat Toy and https://m.bedbathandbeyond.com/m/pr...8VG23r2xUT4V-P9abe-2GWZKfK-5S5YwaAjTWEALw_wcB)
- learning tricks! So far, he can perform (on command) sit, high five, spin (both directions), jump through a hoop, jump from chair to chair, stand on his hind legs.

Games most cats like but Charlie, for some reason, doesn't:
- putting a ping pong ball in the bathtub for cats to chase around (they enjoy the random motion the curves in the bathtub make)
- playing with bubbles

 

[betsygee]

--Wand toys are a favorite here

--I throw a catnip toy or ping pong ball into one end of their crinkle tunnel and they will dive through the tunnel to get it. So fun.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

For a lot of high energy cats, it's not only about the extra physical movement, but about complexity and challenges. This is why a lot of cat trees, I think, are made with so many levels and platforms to explore and navigate.

The negative about the cat trees, though, is that they remain unchanging.

We learned when we got our kitty a few years ago that she likes to do a lot of balancing and walking on small edges.

We have these dining rooms chairs that we lay down on their sides, after removing the seat cushions, and Milly likes to play "balance beam" on the chair frame edges. We started to periodically create what we called "the gymnasium" for her. Several chairs placed on their sides, scratch posts leaning at propped angles to the chair(s), sometimes a draped pillow case or sheet, a lot of hidey hole places, toys and ribbons in rotating locations, brown crinkly packing paper to hide under and rustle through, jingle balls, a crinkle tunnel mixed in -- the main thing was that each Gymnasium was different from the next, and completely random. (And a mess to clean up at the end of Gymnasium Day!)

I don't have any real good pictures of some of our gymnasium set-ups, but here is a blurry snippet from a video when she was a kitten so you can get an idea of the chair edges she likes to walk and run on, and practice her balancing. She'll even go to the upturned edge of the Smart Cat scratcher and balance on the tiny edge.


You can create many different combos of complexity... depending how at ease you are with this temporary mess in the middle of your living room. Gymnasium Day is not every day.

 

[abyeb]

For a lot of high energy cats, it's not only about the extra physical movement, but about complexity and challenges. This is why a lot of cat trees, I think, are made with so many levels and platforms to explore and navigate.

The negative about the cat trees, though, is that they remain unchanging.

We learned when we got our kitty a few years ago that she likes to do a lot of balancing and walking on small edges.

We have these dining rooms chairs that we lay down on their sides, after removing the seat cushions, and Milly likes to play "balance beam" on the chair frame edges. We started to periodically create what we called "the gymnasium" for her. Several chairs placed on their sides, scratch posts leaning at propped angles to the chair(s), sometimes a draped pillow case or sheet, a lot of hidey hole places, toys and ribbons in rotating locations, brown crinkly packing paper to hide under and rustle through, jingle balls, a crinkle tunnel mixed in -- the main thing was that each Gymnasium was different from the next, and completely random. (And a mess to clean up at the end of Gymnasium Day!)

I don't have any real good pictures of some of our gymnasium set-ups, but here is a blurry snippet from a video when she was a kitten so you can get an idea of the chair edges she likes to walk and run on, and practice her balancing. She'll even go to the upturned edge of the Smart Cat scratcher and balance on the tiny edge.
View attachment 191288

You can create many different combos of complexity... depending how at ease you are with this temporary mess in the middle of your living room. Gymnasium Day is not every day.

I love that idea of Gymnasium Day! I have to try that with Charlie!

 

[mokapi]

These are all excellent ideas; I'm going to follow this thread.

I've bought Keegan literally 10 new toys in the last week, and he seems disinterested in all of them. Sigh.

 

[vince]

Despite lots of store-bought toys, the favorite toy for both of my cats is jut a plain old dowel rod. I use it like a wand toy.

 

[Letta]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I will create a list and organize it by type of games and put every sunday or saturday an updated version on my first post. So hopefully in a few days or weeks we have a bible of game to play ^^
Your gymnasium idea is awesome. I will try that.
Ok so here is some of Luna preferred games:
1. I often move the carpets and it creates some bumps and tunnels: she loves that!! (When I clean I actually sometimes move them and put them in chairs: she loves climbing to get them
2. putting some of her toys on top of chairs, she would jump to get them, makes them fall and I have to put it back ect.. even toys she normally ignores
3. wand toys with new things all the time or combining different toys: today it was the thing that airlines give you to put on your eyes to sleep (no idea what the name is)
4. if I pin something on a box she will spend quite a while trying to get it out, or put a pen in the couch.
5. hide and seek. I have to go behind the bed predent to be hidden she would come running and then she would catch me (by liking me) and then run in another direction
6. Tents anything that create a tent or something she can surprise me from
7. catch but have to be new things all the time :/
8. playing with her tunnel: i turn the hole in the middle face down and move something in it and she loves catching it, or I move the tunnel while she is in it and she try to catch the floor that she feels moving under her
9. in the bathtub she used to love pingballs but I don't know why she outgrow it, however she loves if I sit in the bathub to climb me and try to turn the water on herself
10. filling a bowl of water and putting small things in it, even ice cubes
11. fidding a few kibbles by sending them across the floor. some food puzzle (but she is picky about those)
12. playing under doors (loves that a lot!)
13. playing "the mouse". Ok so this is not a game you should play with every cat and certainly not kittens that tends to be a bit bitty, but she loves when I move my hand on the floor like it is a small mice. She would track me, then jump lcik me and go back to her hiding spot and I have to restart again.
14. wrestling with her horse: i move it to pretend it's a prey trying to escape, she would go nuts on it and then carry it away
15. trying to grab a box that I slowly move
16. anything put into a small place can get her going to get it out
17. her da fur thing !! can't get enough of it
18. I move chairs and box and create a small osbstable course, she likes that even if it ends up more being, hiding being things course
19. playing in open suitcases
20. it's not really a game but bringing her new things to smell keeps her busy
ect...
I am sure I will think about other stuff to add...

 

[danteshuman]

My aunt taught her cats to play tag. So they will chase my aunt and she will chase them. One of my cats will fetch a hair rubber band until he tires of the game.

 

[Letta]

My aunt taught her cats to play tag. So they will chase my aunt and she will chase them. One of my cats will fetch a hair rubber band until he tires of the game.

Yeah the thing with fetch for my cat is to change all the time objects, new sounds when it moves and new size get her going, she is curious I guess

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. ...
8. playing with her tunnel: i turn the hole in the middle face down and move something in it and she loves catching it, or I move the tunnel while she is in it and she try to catch the floor that she feels moving under her

ect...
I am sure I will think about other stuff to add...

We do this too!

You can do it with grocery bags too (whether paper or canvas).