# What's your favorite odd toy?



## TrinityQuiet (May 18, 2007)

We all know cats have strange tastes, and they'd much prefer the crinkled up paper to the ten dollar toy you just bought them. So what's your favorite oddball toy, the one not made for the cat?


My cats love pencils above all. My Rotten adores them, she'll carry them everywhere.


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## Nini (May 6, 2007)

Mew and Wicket go completely bonkers for the tiny plastic ring that plug the carton of milk when you first open it... they chase and bat it all over the kitchen floor as fast as they can.

Chewie's favorite odd toy is... my hair :? 
Especially in the morning, she will be purring with us in bed and she gets that strange, fixed look in her eyes... and jumps all claws out in my hair, to attack and chew! I am trying to teach her not to do that because I value my eyes and am not too fond of kitty breath-scented hair, but it's not getting through to her so far.

Isis will play with anything that is _under_ (the couch, the chair, the desk, the blanket, the sheets...) - her favorite so far has been a cardboard string taken from a big package my family sent.

And all of them love beautiful fluffy furry mousies... only Mew and Isis have taken to scalp them and now I have a posse of bald plastic mousies :?


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Holly thinks treats are toys, she has to play hockey with them before she eats them. Onyx used to think that tampons were the just the best toy ever. My friend Debi's cat loves to play with Q-Tips.


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## Frostine (Jun 4, 2007)

Hair ties, dog bones, tennis balls, and a bookmark my daughter made at school that is a ribbon with beads on it. Mine wouldn't touch an actual cat toy to save their lives. I keep meaning to pick up some more ribbon and beads to make more bookmark/cat toys though.

Pookie used to like q-tips too, but I don't use them anymore, so she's sol.


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## Nini (May 6, 2007)

doodlebug said:


> Onyx used to think that tampons were the just the best toy ever.


I am sure that allowed for hearthy laughs - or awkward glances in company of "non-cat-people" :lol: 



> My friend Debi's cat loves to play with Q-Tips.


Ah yes that's a favorite of Isis' too! She will sneak up on you in the bathroom, and steal one thinking she is being sooo stealthy... and then run around with it like crazy. Silly cats :roll:


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## moarias1984 (Oct 20, 2006)

LOL to the tampons as a toy.

Kringle likes those twistie ties, I can't leave them on a counter because he will swat them down.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

Cleo LOVES emory boards. I hope there's nothing wrong with letting her play with them. The kittens like them, too.


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## CataholicsAnonymous (Dec 4, 2006)

I'll never run out of "toys" because the baling twine from the hay bales is loved by all.


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## jessamica8 (Aug 17, 2004)

Pens! I always use the kind that unscrew, and Harley and Jax both eventually have the pens in 4 pieces. Harley's new thing is the bathroom sink - he will knock things into there and then bat them around. I've had to hide away the toothbrushes and other things I do not want him touching, but he still knocks bottles of hair stuff (gel, mousse, whatever) in. I seriously need more storage space in there. :roll:


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Knocking things into the sink just reminded me....Callie liked to play with soap. She'd knock the bar into the sink and bat it around.


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## OhMy (Jul 2, 2007)

My kitties love hair ties, but only after I've worn them in my hair. They also love card board boxes of all shapes and sizes (you guys remember the moving thing, right :lol: ) they love pens and pencils, they love knocking spoons onto the floor from the sink, they love dragging toilet paper from the bathrooms to every room of the house (that's always fun to come home to 8O ) they like playing with packing materials, milk gallon ties.... 

Oh, the list is pretty much endless. :wink:


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## gunterkat (Aug 19, 2006)

A cicada got into the house a couple of days ago, and that was the best toy ever. Arianwen chased the poor thing around like crazy. Then she went sniffing for more of them, and ended up 'asking' if she could go outside to hunt. :?


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## courtneywoah (Sep 4, 2007)

lol @ everyone's responses. Maui loves to play with a balled up Dunkin Donuts wrapper that didnt cost a thing! Out of all her toys she usually chooses that to play with. Kitties are so silly they think everything is a toy!


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## -Ann- (Jun 30, 2006)

Neither of my cats like to play with their own toys. They both LOVE to bat around my daughter's play food. And Chloe just loves and I mean LOVES My Little Ponies. I may let her have one that's all hers to chew on, but I think I should check to make sure it wasn't made in China first.


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## Kobster (Feb 1, 2007)

Mocha used to love to play with starlight mints in the clear cellophane wrappers. Now Sully has come along and those mints are his favorite toy too! It's like having Mocha back again in some small way. Its the little things that matter most.


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## ~Siameseifuplz~ (May 6, 2007)

There favorite...Flys, but that's different.

I made Neko a fetch toy which he loves. I took a plastic sandwich bag and put some of those half marbles (that you play Mancala with) in it until it was the weight of a rodent. Then I twisted it closed and put a rubber band on the opening. Next I took some bubble wrap and surrounded the bag with that making sure to tuck in the part with the rubber band. I used scotch tape to keep the bubble wrap on but I had to make sure to use it only where necessary or it would wreck the texture of the toy. I made sure not to make the bubble wrap too tight or he would have trouble holding it, so I made sure it was a little roomy between the bad and the bubble wrap. He LOVES it! I can't leave him alone with it though, I don't want him ripping it open and eating the half marbles or the rubber band, so it is only used for fetch.

Willie will play with anything, he likes pens, his toys, everything (except he does not fetch).


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## Kaia Cat (Apr 11, 2007)

kaia's favorite toy is a tiny green velvet coat :lol: She found it in the basment somewhere and came running up the stairs with it in her mouth. She sleeps with it, plays fetch with it. The funny thing is no one has ever seen the coat before :lol: 

She also loves the printer, whenever your printing something she comes running. and watches it. more favorites are water bottle caps,& emory boards.


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## melysion (Mar 12, 2007)

Toby loves playing with Daddys cloth rug. He will mess it all up by sliding on it and gathering it up in his paws and pouncing on it and he will run around the flat with it in his mouth. Its a big rug too! I think its really funny - my flatmate complains about al lthe 'threads' that have appeared in his nice rug.

Ooops :lol:

Toby also likes pouncing on shoelaces - usually when they are are still attached to the shoe and the shoe is still attached to someones foot! :lol:


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Holly like toes...when they're encased in socks or blankets.


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## TrinityQuiet (May 18, 2007)

I've never shown Rotten a q-tip...I'll have to see what she thinks. And she does adore hair ties. I have a broken yellow one that she carries around everywhere


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## uminchu (Apr 19, 2007)

Ping pong balls. Our cats, especially Mina, go crazy playing hockey with them for a couple days or so, particularly on wood floors where they make noise rolling and bouncing. Then they just seem to just disappear. There's another thread here about lost toys. Somewhere in this house (has to be downstairs), there are at least 2 dozen or more of these things. We've looked all over, under, and behind, but so far no luck. We know most of the places the fuzzy mice turn up, but they must've lost or stashed the ping pong balls elsewhere.

Which reminds me ... Note to self: Add a 6 pack of ping pong balls to the shopping list.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

I think Holly would love ping pong balls...I gotta get her some! Off to Walmart...


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## Bethany (Jul 19, 2006)

Ping-pong balls sound like fun, but they also sound like the break one of my first rules of cat toys: will it hurt when I step on it?

Mine are big fans of hair ties: I just lost one this morning, in fact. I took it out of my braid and Stormy knocked it off the desk into places unknown while I was combing my hair out.

Stormy is, unfortunately, a big fan of phone cords (the ones that connect the base to the wall). After chewing up my phone cord and all my backup phone cords, I went out and bought a cordless phone (which still needs to be plugged into the wall, of course, but since it's cordless I don't need such a long cord from the wall to the base). Last night, I found her chewing on the cord for phone's AC adaptor... I can't win. I tried coving the power cord with aluminium foil. Hopefully she'll leave it alone instead of interpreting it as a challenge.

Moving paper is also a great favorite.


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## uminchu (Apr 19, 2007)

Bethany said:


> Ping-pong balls sound like fun, but they also sound like the break one of my first rules of cat toys: will it hurt when I step on it?


No, it doesn't hurt. It'll startle you and feel weird, but it doesn't hurt. The cats like the dented ones just as much, because they roll funny.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Holly is playing with her ping pong ball as I type....definitely a hit! :lol:

ETA: Uh oh...I think it already went under the couch 8O


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## Bethany (Jul 19, 2006)

Hmm. Perhaps I'll have to try some, then.

On their website, the Denver Dumb Friends League suggests putting a ping-pong ball in the bathtub for the cats to play with it somewhere it can't escape! (They also suggest removing it before you go to bed unless you can't hear racket in the bathroom from your bedroom.)


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Maggie has been running around playing with a grocery receipt for the last 10 minutes....weird cat...


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

My cats love receipts, too. And the part of the kleenex box you pull off when it's new. :roll:


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## Bethany (Jul 19, 2006)

Speaking of odd toys, this morning I woke up a few hours before I intended to get up to discover Stormy on my bedroom floor locked in an epic battle with my beach towel.

I went back to sleep and when I woke up again, Stormy had curled up to take a nap on her defeated foe.

Silly cat. She sure showed that beach towel who was boss, though.


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## Nini (May 6, 2007)

Bethany said:


> Silly cat. She sure showed that beach towel who was boss, though.


Hahaha... silly kitty! :lol: 

That makes me feel a bit better though... every morning I drape the fleece blanket that the cats sleep on, on the top of the couch so it's more comfy, and Isis has been known to engage in serious battles with it... she grabs and claws and bites and chirps - I always thought she was a little nutso, but now I am relieved, it's just another common feline game :wink:


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## Bethany (Jul 19, 2006)

Nini said:


> Bethany said:
> 
> 
> > Silly cat. She sure showed that beach towel who was boss, though.
> ...


Well, if she's crazy, Stormy is, too.  This is the first time I've seen her fighting with the beach towel but she regularly throws down with the wool throw rug in the living room. For some reason, she always attacks the same corner (I guess that corner is the offensive one). I just got the thing in April and you can already see that corner is noticibly more worn than the others.


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## TrinityQuiet (May 18, 2007)

My Rotten's developed a new absolute favorite toy. My uncle has a huge spa tub he doesn't use, and he has a piece of plexiglass sitting diagonally in it from side to side, one side on the top of hte tub, the other on the bottom. Rotten goes nuts attacking all around it, trying to attack me through the plexiglass, and she plays for a good twenty minutes at a time, just skidding around the tub & plastic.  It makes her so happy. I sneak up on her over the edge of it...and as I peep over, the first thing I see are her ears pinned back viciously...then her pupils, huge and black, then her hunched back, twitching tail...so I make a noise or movement and she skitzes out, starts to jump over the tub, then stops on the edge and cleans herself.


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## Nini (May 6, 2007)

The cats are having a grand time with _their _favorite odd toy - definitely _not_ mine - a dead cockroach more than one inch long 8O

They killed one the other night in the kitchen, and since I could not find it I thought they had eaten it (ewwww, but they love crunchy snacks)... well, apparently Wicket kept it safe in his favorite cardboard box in the closet, and forgot all about it til he dug it out today, all dry and ready to be batted around... it's so disgusting, I can't even try to take it away from them :?


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Off Topic but....Nini...are your cats eating roaches? If they are, I wonder of this could be the cause of the digestive issues you're having. I just googled 'cockroach disease' and found many articles on how a roach's digestive system harbors all kinds of bacteria and can pass all kinds of diseases including dysentery and gastroenteritis to humans...I'm betting a cat eating a roach might be subject to some issues too. The bacteria is also harbored in their droppings.


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## camel24j (Jan 12, 2007)

i have a pet hissing roach dose that still apply to them?


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## Nini (May 6, 2007)

doodlebug said:


> Off Topic but....Nini...are your cats eating roaches?


Mew does, but the others don't. She is always the fastest, and no one ever gets a chance to crunch the bug but her. Isis does not seem interested, and the babies just bat them around. I don't let them eat the big fat ones either, they are just too gross.

What you found out about roaches does not surprise me - I am also always worried that Mew might eat roaches that have been poisoned outside, but there is nothing much I can do... by the time I get to the bathroom, she is usually swallowing the last bit of it :? 

Now everyone has normal stools except Chewie - I am going to do a second round of the enzyme treatment on her.


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## Nicnic (Apr 22, 2007)

Mine love pipe-cleaners. They are the best cat toy ever invented! 
Pom-pom balls, hair ties and cardboard boxes are also right up there along with empty toliet paper rolls. 
Basically anything you can buy from a craft or hobby store, stuff form the pet store will just not do. They also have small plastic farm animals from the dollar store that they like to carry around.


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## Nini (May 6, 2007)

Wicket's new favorite as of yesterday and this morning is... my legs :lol: 

He grabs one when I'm passing by - without claws - and just wrestles it and hangs on to it like to a coconut tree... then he tucks his tail way up on his back and takes off at full speed, chirping.

Silly cat.


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