Your Cats Will Beg You for this Toy

Seriously. Since when do cats beg? Apparently since they were made aware of a toy called "The Original Cat Dancer". Huh? Yes, I ran across reviews of this toy on Amazon.com when purchasing other cat items, and the reviews were so overwhelmingly positive, to the point of gushing, that I had to check this thing out.

I had no idea what it was. The Amazon.com entry didn't really describe the item very well. And on receipt of it, I could see why. It is ridiculously simple. It's basically a yard-long piece of bailing wire with some cardboard bits attached at each end. If you read about a cat toy like that, would you buy it?

Of course not! At least, not unless you were somehow convinced that it magically attracts cats, like the pied piper attracted rats. So how does it work?

I'd like to know as much as you would. I really have no idea

why our cats go absofreakinlutely insane over this thing. The first time we showed it to them, they went nuts immediately and we had to put the toy away after 15 minutes or so, before they had heart attacks from over-exertion. That's pretty much a first for any toy. With all other toys, they eventually get tired. But not with this one.

And, yes, just as the title of this blog entry says, your cats will beg you for this toy. Ours do. We come home in the evening and feed them, and the moment they have finished eating they start meowing at us and standing in front of the cabinet where we keep

the Cat Dancer. (We have to put it away when not in use or they'd find it and obsess over it and do who-knows-what to it!) They are not satisfied until the Cat Dancer comes out and engages them. And "engages" is a mild term for what really happens. They turn into crazed predators. They run back and forth as we drag this thing across the floor, and they also leap through the air after it if we dangle it above them. They get so involved in chasing the Cat Dancer that they actually pant like dogs from the exertion (and yes, we've had them thoroughly checked by the vet, and they're hale and hearty - no worries about the panting). Even Boo, who is normally tough to motivate with toys, goes wild over this one.

The best part about this toy? It currently sells NEW on Amazon.com for $5.31. Well, when you consider what it's made of, you'll think that's a fortune, but once you see how your cats react to it, you'll think it's one of the best deals ever.

By the way, the boys still love The Bolt laser toy. We turn it on before we leave for work in the morning (and let it shut itself off in 15 minutes).

On other cat topics, I came across a web site, recently, called The Random Cat Project. The site's premise is a truly enlightened idea and makes for touching content. The site's creators have filmed and photographed random cats that they've encountered while walking through London, and they've posted the photos and videos at the site. They are soliciting similar photos and videos of random cat encounters from all over the world. I was so smitten by this web site that I sent the link to, among several others, ModernCat, and they posted it in their newsletter/blog. So now it's my turn. Lovely idea, Neil & Co., keep up the great work, and we'll be on the look-out for random cats to document here in Silicon Valley.

Laser Toys Everywhere

We've been using laser pointers with our cats for many years. We first noticed our dear Mala (R.I.P.) running madly after the small circle of light that reflected off my watch face. But that only worked when there was direct sunlight in the vicinity. Then laser pointers appeared, and we recognized immediately that these pointers would make great cat entertainment! Those early laser pointers really sucked up the battery power, however, and they used unusual batteries (those small hearing-aid type batteries) that were not always very easy to find. But, nevertheless, our cats learned to recognize the sound of the laser pointer as it was being picked up (it had a key chain on it that jingled) - that's how much they loved to chase The Red Dot!

Recently several cat products have come on the market that purport to entertain cats with lasers while the humans get on with other business. This is a bit sad, because half the fun of the laser pointer is to get your cat flinging himself crazily around the house after The Red Dot, and laughing insanely at his silly antics. However, we're pretty sure that a few cases of tendonitis arose among cat owners who went a little bonkers with the laser pointers, and relief from that would be welcome. And sometimes, we have to admit, we just don't have as much time as we'd like to spend a lot of play time with the feline members of our families. So these automatic cat toys were definitely intriguing.

The first we found was the "Ba-Da-Beam Rotating Laser Cat Toy" made by Multipet Inernational Inc. Bit of a mouthful, that. But it looked interesting - it's shaped a bit like a NASA space capsule from the 60s, and it has a lid on top that lifts up to reveal a mirror and a laser. The mirror adjusts to two different positions so that one can direct The Red Dot at the floor or at a wall. Clever! It was $16.99 at PetSmart. Our cats are not as enamored of The Red Dot on the wall as they are of it on the floor, so we used the floor setting. However, the floor setting resulted in a Red Dot that moved languidly in a fairly small-diameter (2 to 3 inches) oval. It stopped every so often and sat for half a second, only to start its weary rotations again. The cats were fairly interested in it at first but seemed to quickly grow bored with it.

We fiddled with the lid/mirror, to see if we could entice it into any positions between "floor" and "wall". No luck. So we stacked a few things under one edge of the "capsule". This did result in some better laser action. The Red Dot actually moved in a larger oval, which interested the cats a bit more. And the Ba-Da-Beam has an automatic shut-off, so we could turn it on and let the cats play, and it would turn off after about 15 minutes. This is not described in the instructions - that makes it a Bonus Feature! The instructions do state that the Ba-Da-Beam may be held in the hand for a more "interactive" experience. We tried that, and Ivan perked up quiet a bit. He looked like he had suddenly acquired a palsy of some sort, his head bobbing in a manner reminiscient of an elderly Katherine Hepburn. Ivan was more interested in The Red Dot when the Ba-Da-Beam was held in the hand than when it was set on a table or on the floor. But that sort of defeats the purpose - it was the "automatic" nature of the toy that was most enticing. However, on the bright side, the Ba-Da-Beam comes with batteries included! That's a rarity.

We saw a review of the Bolt automatic laser toy in the ModernCat blog. We then kept seeing ads for it in our pet insurance e-mail newsletters (through Pet Product Advisor). However, if we ordered it through Pet Product Advisor, we had to pay shipping. So we checked at our neighborhood PetSmart to see if they carried the Bolt.

The first time we checked, they did not have the Bolt, but they did have the Ba-Da-Beam, and that's when we purchased that toy. We checked a couple more times, but no Bolt, until today, when we went into PetSmart to get some cat litter. Voila, there was the Bolt! It's hard to miss once you've seen what it looks like. It looks a bit like a bowling pin with a hole near the top where the mirror and laser are located. It was $19.99. Not including batteries (it takes 4 AAs).

The Bolt, made by FroliCat, is the laser toy perfected. It can be placed on any flat surface - a table, a counter, the floor - and turned on, and The Red Dot moves about semi-randomly. The movement is reminiscent of the movement of the Undercover Mouse toy. Its basic track is a circle (or oval, in the case of the Bolt) but it moves forward and backward along the circle in random motions, stopping and changing direction constantly. That kind of random movement drives cats crazy. Once we set it up and the cats got accustomed to it, even Boo was chasing it, and Boo is fairly difficult to motivate when it comes to chasing things. And, the best part about the Bolt is that the mirror is adjustable, so you can have The Red Dot moving in wide arcs across floors, walls, and even ceilings, or you can have it move in a fairly small arc, to keep it right in front of kitties who lose interest once The Object of Their Interest moves out of their line of vision. The Bolt also has a 15-minute automatic shut-off, so that the cats don't keel over from too much exertion. Truly, that is sometimes a concern with hyper Ivan!

So if we had to choose between the two laser toys discussed here, we would definitely choose the Bolt. For $3 more than the Ba-Da-Beam you get a much more adjustable toy that works well entertaining cats while you go off to clean the bathroom, but it also works as a hand held laser, allowing you to interact a bit more with your feline friends.

The Kittywalk Cozy Climber and Music for Pets

Ivan and Boo spend most of their time in our small apartment. They travel well, so when we go up north to our 20 acres in the mountains, they go with us, but work's been busy so we haven't gotten out of town as much as we'd like this year. The apartment is only about 800 square feet (real estate is insanely expensive, even for leasing, in the San Francisco Bay Area). So we have got to work to find ways to maximize that room so the boys get some decent exercise.

One way we maximize the room is with the Kittywalk Cozy Climber. This ingenious "hanging cat tree" attaches to any interior door. It has four levels, with holes between each level to allow the cat to climb to different levels easily. However, Ivan often climbs up the Cozy Climber on the outside and sits atop the "roof"! He's the daredevil in the family.

The boys love the Cozy Climber and often sleep in it. They also use it as a refuge when they know we are getting ready for bed and plan to boot them out of the bedroom for the night (we do that so they can't jump on our heads at 3:30am in the morning, wanting to play). The only way we can get them out of it is to offer them dehydrated salmon (we've talked about that salmon here before).
One of the many attractive features of the Cozy Climber is the ease with which you can hang it and take it down. We take it down each night because it is on our bedroom door, and if we leave it hanging, the boys jump in and out of it during the night and rattle our bedroom door. So we take it down, and then hang it up again each morning. Of course, this amounts to one less distraction for them during the night, meaning they often get into mischief while we are sleeping!

We purchased our Cozy Climber as an "open box" item on Amazon.com for around $100. Currently Amazon.com is selling them for about $160.00. However, we saw it as low as $148 via a search on Google.

Kittywalk makes some great products. We also own the Kittywalk SUV Pet Stroller, which easily holds both Ivan and Boo (at the same time!). We'll review this product in a future blog entry. And we are eyeing the Kittywalk Deck and Patio system. We'd love to let the boys lounge outside in the sunshine on our patio in one of these. However, there is another similar item we are looking at from another manufacturer, the KritterKondo. We'll let you know if we choose one over the other and what we think of whatever we choose.

Another cat-related item we acquired is the Music My Pet CD of "Classic Cuts". This is a CD that offers classical music pieces that, studies show, help to calm cats and dogs. It's also pretty darn calming for humans! We've played it for Ivan and Boo, and they do seem to mellow a bit when it's playing. A web site that we found through our pet insurance, Pet Product Advisor, offers this CD for $12.99. However, they were out of it when we tried to order it, so we found it on Amazon. com (I swear that we do not own stock in Amazon.com!) for a bit more, though at the moment they offer it for the same price as Pet Product Advisor! The CD contains calming pieces by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, and Schumann., as well as Schubert and Scarlatti, and, finally, Chopin. We understand that the studies done on this topic found that cats and dogs seem to prefer music that remains even in tempo and volume, as well as frequency. The reviews of this product on Amazon.com all recommend the product and indicate that it works well to calm pets!

One last item: we received a sample of bonita flake cat treats from Pur'fect Cat Treats. The boys love these as much as the dehydrated salmon! The only difference is that the bonita flakes are soft and very thin and small. However, if your cats are on a diet, these would be just the right treats for them!

That Big Furry Cat Toy

Remember the furry cat toy we mentioned a few entries ago? We finally got the information on it from our local pet store. The product is made by Vo-Toys, under the "V.I.P" brand (stands for "Very Important Pet") and the line is called "Furry Friends". We found today that they make the large sized toy, which we purchased a few weeks ago and which Ivan and Boo love, and they make a smaller one, as well, which is $1.00 cheaper. We had not heard of Vo-Toys before buying these furry toys, but their web site shows that they have quite a few items available for cats, including many furry mice and similar toys. Our cats seem to really like fur, so this is a good find.

You may also remember our mention of the cat cubes that we found at Target recently for a very inexpensive price. We found a tunnel to attach to the cubes (it velcroes on), and we created a nice tunnel-cube-pyramid play area for the cats. It doesn't happen to be color-coordinated with the cubes we already had, but hey, we're pretty sure the cats don't mind. Plus, the tunnel has that crinkly, paper-sack sound that a lot of cat-toy manufacturers are using these days. (Ivan used to be afraid of that sound, owing to the fact that he got a paper grocery bag around his neck when he was younger and ran around the house trying to get away from it for a few minutes before we could catch him and remove it! However, he seems to have finally gotten over that aversion.)The product is made by "Sport Pet Designs". The cat cubes and pyramid we already had are made by "Pet Essentials" but we suspect these two companies are related and both supply pet products to Target. In fact, there is a photo on the back of the "Kitty Tunnel" which shows the cat cubes and pyramids that we already have, but in a different color scheme. This tunnel, like the cubes, was under $10.00. Ivan loves to take his toys into the tunnel-cube-pyramid system. He also loves to zoom into the tunnel, hang out in one of the cubes or the pyramid for a while, and then zoom out.

Great Interactive Toy - The Tornado

Recently we saw a reference to dog toys created by Nina Ottosson. The reference was in a cat context, and the writer suggested that the Ottosson toys, though designed for dogs, were great for cats. We had never heard of Nina Ottosson, so we googled her, and we found quite a bit of information on her and her toys. We also found several toys that even she recommends for use with cats. The above link goes straight to her own site.

Ottosson creates toys that challenge dogs (and cats), and that force the animals to use their brains. We've been looking for toys like this for a long time. We have one item, which we ordered from Drs. Foster and Smith, called the Peek-a Prize Toy Box. It's a box with holes along all but its bottom panel. It comes with balls to bat around, but we put treats in it, forcing the cats to work to get the treats. Boo, seeming to have some Maine Coon blood, puts his paw in, curls his toes around the treat, and pulls it straight up out of the box! Ivan has to work a bit harder, but he uses a bit more ingenuity to get his treats. The photo here is from the Drs. Foster and Smith web site.

We wanted something a bit more challenging for our cats, so when we heard about the Ottosson toys, we were very interested. After reading about several of her toys, we were most intrigued by the "Tornado". It was specifically marketed for dogs and cats. Ottosson does have a page at her site where she indicates the featured toys can be used by dogs, cats, "Polecats, Mini pigs, Parrots, Ratts [sic], Horses..." However, the Tornado looked to us like the easiest one for cats to use. (The word polecat, by the way, refers to a different animal in Europe than it does in the U.S. In the U.S. it is a skunk, but in Europe it refers to another member of the Mustelid family which we in the U.S. would call a ferret). Interestingly, the skill level of the Tornado is listed as "hard" on the box, but Ivan figured out the general principle, at least, in a matter of seconds! Of course, most cat lovers would argue that cats are more intelligent than dogs, and that this is proof. However, as we love cats and dogs, we will refrain from getting embroiled in that argument!

The Tornado is a bone-shaped toy (hey, the cats don't notice!) composed of different levels with compartments. Each level rotates separately around the center of the toy - hence the name Tornado. The cat must use its nose and/or paws to move the different levels and expose the compartments. We placed a piece of freeze-dried salmon in each compartment, and then we rotated all pieces so that each level lined up with the others and all compartments were covered. The salmon has a relatively strong smell which the cats love, and so they become intent on finding each piece (needless to say, they also love to eat the salmon!).

We videotaped Ivan and Boo (mostly Ivan) having a go with the Tornado.

We put a piece of salmon in each compartment and let them have at it. The video is only about three and a half minutes long, but the total elapsed time it took Ivan to find every piece of salmon was about 10 minutes. That's a long time to keep a cat busy! Even if you don't watch the entire video, just watching a few seconds of it will give you an idea of how it works.

We highly recommend this toy to mentally stimulate your cat(s). However, we have to add that they are not very interested in finding Greenies in this toy. These boys will only work for freeze dried salmon (which we discussed in a previous blog entry)! We purchased the toy from Dogs in Play via Amazon.com. It was $49.99. This is expensive, but after seeing our cats with it, we feel it is well worth the price. However, with a bit of web research, you may be able to find it for a lower price.

Another Litter Box Alternative, but This One Looks Good!

Just got word about a new product called the ModKat Litter Box. This thing looks COOL! Not only does it have an unusual shape and profile for a litter box, but entry is from the top ("roof")! Further, the liner (pictured below)is re-usable! It's made of a tarpaulin material and has built in handles for ease of lifting in and out, and it's very easy to clean. Wait there's more! It comes with a well-designed litter scoop that has a brush on one edge! And the scoop snaps right on the side of the box.

Don't let the above photo fool you -- there are four different colors available, at least per the web site.

This box should reduce litter tracking, as the cat will shed litter he's collected in his pads while climbing out of the box. And the holes in the "roof" not only provide ventilation, but they also allow litter that falls from the cat's paws to drop back into the box.

Shortly after first hearing about this gem, we learned it won the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) Editor's award for accessories. Not bad!

You can sign up at the ModKat web site to be notified when this litter box is available. There are also many more photos at the web site. And kudos to the ModernCat blog/newsletter for alerting us to this cool find!

Corny Cats and Furry Toys and Litter Robots

Corn litter. It's a great idea. It's biodegradable, it's renewable, it's non-toxic. It works in the Litter Robot. It's also dust-free and doesn't track much, and we don't have to worry about Ivan or Boo developing a giant ball of bentonite in the gut from licking clay litter off their paws.

These are good things.

The corn litter makes the laundry room (where the litter boxes are) smell like Corn Chex. And for some reason, Corn Chex Scent does not mix well with cat urine or feces - the smell is not easily described. Suffice it to say that it's not exactly pleasant.

These are bad things.

Since the good outweigh the bad, we decided to purchase a product that our pet insurance newsletter has been recommending: Zero Odor. It supposedly neutralizes odor-causing microbes and is marketed specifically for use in litter boxes. So why not try it? If that helps with the Corn-Chex-Cat-Waste scent action going on in our laundry room, the story will have a happy ending.

We just received the Zero Odor yesterday. We decided to test it immediately. First, we needed to get a good baseline whiff of the litterbox. After thoroughly scooping the box, we sniffed, recoiled, and then took the bottle of Zero Odor and gave it several good squirts into the litterbox. Then we immediately sniffed again. The recoil reaction was not as strong. So either we'd maxed out our Corn-Chex-Cat-Waste olfactory receptors with the first sniff, or the odor was now weaker. We sprayed some more Zero Odor into the box and sniffed again, and the scent definitely seemed quite a bit weaker. In fact, we seemed to be smelling mostly Corn Chex without the Cat Waste notes.

So the preliminary results indicate that we CAN have a Corn-Chex-Cat-Waste-scent-free home without abandoning the corn litter!

By the way, the litter we use is The World's Best Cat Litter - multiple cat formula. One more favorable attribute of this litter - it's quite a bit lighter than clay, so it's easier to purchase a big-ass bag and get it out of the store without damaging one's back.

Now, a more exciting topic: furry toys! We've had toy mice made from real fur in the past, and Ivan and Boo just love them. So when we saw a big furry critter toy at the local pet store, we decided we needed to try it out with our cats. They LOVE it! We accidentally discarded the packaging before we could record important information about this toy, but we'll go back to the pet store and get another. It was quite reasonably priced, and with two cats, one favorite toy is one too few! Ivan does amazing gymnastics with this toy. We'll try to catch him on video and show you.

We mentioned the Litter Robot above. We just realized that we have not given it a proper review! Here in our blog we've talked about how much we like it, and we've hinted at how it works, but that's about it. Well, let us tell you...this thing is IT! It really is the best automated litter box that we have come across. It doesn't get clogged. It doesn't have a "rake" that can get stuck. It doesn't have a difficult-to-install waste bag. This thing is a BREEZE! The initial outlay is a pretty penny, but, frankly, it's not all that much more than the rake varieties of automated litter box, and it works a million times better. In a nutshell, this baby sits and waits for your cat to climb in and use it. Seven minutes after it detects your cat has exited, it starts a cycle. The globe rotates 360 degrees, and during this rotation the litter slides across a sieve, leaving the clumped pieces, while the clean litter falls through. As the globe continues to rotate, the clumps of waste are dumped into the receptacle beneath the globe. Finally, the globe rotates back in the opposite direction to restore the clean litter to the bottom of the globe. It even rotates a bit past "level" to make sure the clean litter is re-distributed evenly. You simply pull out a bottom drawer, which is lined with an inexpensive standard "tall kitchen" garbage can liner, remove the garbage bag, and dispose of the waste. Inserting a fresh garbage bag takes about 4 seconds. You can watch a demonstration of the Litter Robot cleaning cycle here.

We love it so much we bought a second one for Dev and Belle. In their case we decided to purchase a reconditioned unit. Occasionally someone will have a cat who is not interested in using a new type of litter box, and since Litter Robot comes with a 60-day return policy, the folks with finicky cats return the little-used or completely un-used Litter Robot, and people like us can buy it at a discount. It is completely cleaned and sanitized before it is resold, of course.

We learned of this product on Catster, and numerous folks there recommended the Litter Robot to us. People with multiple-cat households, especially, love it. No more scooping litter! A fresh litter box for Fluffy every time! What more could s/he ask for? Hmm, well, yes, food that is available 24-hours a day, perhaps, but if they can't have that, at least they've got the Litter Robot!