Weird Toys Your Pets Chose for Themselves?

15 years ago

My cats have had just about every toy known to man (laser pointers, remote-controlled toys, anything with catnip, plain old mice, balls with bells, balls without bells, etc.), but I am constantly dumbfounded by what one of my cat has chosen as her favorite toy of all time. Lucy has forsaken all other toys for what is actually about 1/3rd of a ferret chew stick. My ferrets don't find them very interesting (so I never bought more than the one package and have long since thrown it away), but one of them decided to hide a piece of one under the couch, and Lucy (the cat) has been obsessed with this completely random object ever since she found it. I'm not kidding - it's really just a Broken. Piece. Of. A. Ferret. Chew. Stick. It doesn't move, make noise, avail itself to batting around or other typical cat games. She will launch full-on assaults on the thing, attack my other cat if she gets too close to it, swat at us if we try to mess with her stupid toy. This has been going on for over a year, and I'm constantly annoyed by it, because it looks like we have a small piece of something someone dropped and should rightly be in the trash right in the middle of my floor.

And this idiotic piece of "trash" is what Lucy uses as "home base" every single day. I like to blame it on toxins she might have been exposed to prior to being brought to the shelter. Sigh.

{{!gwi}}
Yes, this is what my cat thinks is the holy grail of cat toys.

Anyone else got a pet with a really random "toy"?

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (18)

User
15 years ago
My little cat enjoys a "micro-machine"...a kid's toy car that you pull back and it propels itself across the room.
michelle_phxaz
15 years ago
The rings from milk jugs are a fave, and cardboard paper towel rolls; not toilet paper rolls, just the paper towel ones!
Related Discussions
September Conversation Thread: Your Pet Peeve
Q
Comments (42)
I keep a lot of notes. I started out just putting everything into one big document but it made it so big and disorganized that I finally just started keeping separate ones. Just named them simply, "Gourds", "Garlic", "Tomatoes", "Peppers", etc so I can find them quickly. I never print them out cause then I lose them! Or they get wet and the ink runs. I have found that some things grow better in containers, some grow better at ground level and some grow better in raised beds. And all that probably depends on the type of soil a person has. Mine is black gumbo clay. Beth, I'm proud of you for having the resolve to get off government assistance. I deplore the way the program is run. I would so love to see them add classes for the people on their programs. Many of them don't even know how to cook so they're spending those food stamps on expensive convenience foods instead of, say, buying a whole chicken. I get three good meals out of one whole chicken. When I'm done with it, there's nothing left but some soft bones and a little limp skin, which I bury out in the garden and then put something on top of it so the dog can't dig it up. But anyway, education is the key, to my mind, and you are wise to be trying to learn to garden. Even if a person can only grow something in a pot, they gain knowledge from the experience. There was a man selling corn out of his truck in a parking lot near here over the weekend. He was getting $7 a dozen for his ears of corn and they weren't real big. And he had a few black diamond watermelon but he wouldn't sell them because he said the ones he had sold had come back because they weren't ripe yet. He was selling them for $10 each. He'll probably be back next weekend with ripe ones, if all this rain doesn't split and ruin them all. Think of all the corn you could grow for $7, and all the watermelon you could grow for $10. Even if the rain did split the melons, if you got out there right away, brught them in and processed them, you'd still get good value. You can save seed from grocery store vegetables. Sometimes they'll be hybrids so they won't grow exactly like what you bought, but they'll grow something. I've gotten some wonderful cantaloupe by having the seed in the compost bin germinate. And I planted grocery store Arkansas tomatoes this year. They made beautiful round tomatoes but the flavor wasn't nearly as good as George's Baker Family Heirlooms. Sometimes I check out the marked down produce just for the seed that I might get. Last year I grew spaghetti squash from the seed of a grocery store purchase.
...See More
Why would you spend so much on your pet???
Q
Comments (24)
Hmm...Is it weird that I am not planning to tell a single soul "in real life" how much my new kitty's latest veterinary adventure is going to wind up costing? I finally moved to a place where I can have cats, got Lucy two weeks ago, and I got suckered into the unnamed one last week. Between pet deposits, adoption fees, a spay, routine post-adoption vet visits, emergency vet visit for a bad suture reaction/spay incision issues, more vet visits to follow up for that, middle-aged diagnostics and meds/visits for a bad URI in the new kitty, I'm already out somewhere around $2k or so? I am kind of scared to add it up, so I won't. My Lucy is now at the emergency vet for a possible intestinal obstruction. We're still hoping not to have to do surgery, but my estimate just for hospitalization, multiple x-rays, etc. over 24-48 hours is $1-2k. Ouch. Surgery is another ~$2k. Double ouch. To be quite honest, I've never been in a position to have to spend this much on my pets all at once (I also happen to live in a much higher cost area now). I was "fortunate" enough to have only long-term/chronic issues with some of my previous pets, but nothing major and acute. This wouldn't be *so* crazy if I hadn't already blown through so much just in the initial expenses of getting the cats and dealing with the relatively minor medical issues they came with. Two weeks into new cat ownership, and I might be out $6,000. I need to stop typing. Seeing the numbers again is freaking me out. Anywho...this is a young cat. An intestinal obstruction is unlikely to shorten her life span, so I just don't feel like worrying about the massive credit card debt I'm getting myself into (again! I was doing so well!) I just keep telling myself it's not that much if I average it out over her expected life span. Right? Right? Someone tell me I'm not completely insane. I'm getting pet insurance after this, though. A hundred or so bucks a year for peace of mind is worth it after this.
...See More
How do you accommodate your pets?
Q
Comments (63)
Papa's little darling is a black/tan dachshund girl named Dixie. She is a huntress. After we added the "back forty" to our fenced space, she was enjoying exploring that new and shady locale. However, a week or so ago she disappeared one dark night and did not come when I called her to come in. It is my habit to let the two dogs out for a final business trip before we go to bed, and is usually over in a few minutes. But Dixie does not exactly pay attention to coming back when she gets her nose full of a scent like RABBIT, and we now have a rabbit coming into the garden to eat tasty stuff, and Dixie can track it everywhere it's been. So it was about 11 pm, and I was ready to go to bed. My flashlight batteries were DEAD, so I could not see how to walk in the stubbly field of cut bushes to look for her. Calling her name endlessly that late at night and clapping hands would not be appreciated by neighbors. I looked and looked, and listened for any sounds of her, all to no avail. Nothing. I went out front to the street to see if this little black dog could be out there, again no sign of her. I was sick at heart, because she is not wise to the ways of cars, and will follow her nose without looking up. I could not think about what I'd tell her papa in the morning when he called. So I turned on the front porch light, opened the blinds so I could see if she came up on the stoop, and waited. And waited some more. Around 2 am, there was a little scratch on the front door, and I looked that way to see her panting tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. She was ready to come home. She had scratches, a rash on her low slung belly, and by the next morning there were many bruises like finger prints around her back legs under the belly. I took her to the vet for babysitting (I was heading to Iowa next night), and they gave me something for the rash. Well, the same thing happened again Tuesday this week, only it was daylight, and I was watching the dogs while I watered my flowerpots. Suddenly no Dixie in the yard. I went calling again, no answer. I went to my neighbor's yard to see if she had gotten under our fence into HIS yard, but no. I was pretty mad at her this time. So I came back to our side of the shrubbery, and there she was, by the car in the driveway. Now I am putting her harness on with the leash attached to a large but movable object (a wire basket) so that she is slowed down, and cannot get far if she tries to go under the fence. This will be the routine until I can add a barrier around the new fence area, like we have under the old fence area, which will keep her from escaping. She is a quick learner. Poor little rabbit, I hope Dixie makes friends with it, and it grows up quickly to be bigger than she is. Anyway, here is a picture of her with her "ball and chain." I hope the animal cruelty folks don't catch me.
...See More
Pet Toys
Q
Comments (24)
My little dog has a ton of toys but she particularly likes a small round hedgehog toy with a very cute sounding squeeker. I buy them at bed bath and beyond. She now has several of them because I worry what will happen if I can not find them, so I just bought several. They are her menions! She has jobs for all of them. There is one in the window in the front of the house guarding the front, there is one at the slider door in the sunroom watching the back. The others have various stations around the house including at her food bowls. She plays with them for hours, she rolls them, throws them, bats them around like a soccer player and she usually has one in her bed or in our bed. She is hilarious to watch with her menions. I have bought the same toy for my neighbors black lab who loves it, and for one of my best friends little min pin who won't let anyone else touch it she loves the thing so much. I don't know what it is about this particular toy but every dog just loves them. I have seen other hedgehogs and in fact bought her another type and she leaves it in the toy box untouched. This is exactly the one she loves, she has several of the small ones which she loves, we found the big momma one and bought it but she won't play with it at all. Talking Hedgehog Plush Dog toy
...See More
Elly_NJ
15 years ago
In the winter, I would cut off the fingertips of gloves to make gloves I could work in. Sofie loved the fingertips to play with.
weed30 St. Louis
15 years ago
Two of my dogs LOVE plastic bottle tops. There are several scattered about the house right now. They definitely look like trash, but heck, it's a cheap toy, so I'm not complaining :)
cat_mom
15 years ago
My parents' cat LOVED the crumpled Equal wrappers that my dad would toss for him after his evening coffee. When they'd moved the fridge to clean, they found a pile of them that the cat had batted back there!
carmen_grower_2007
15 years ago
We've spent plenty on toys for 'our baby' and still her two favorites are the green plastic individual 7-Up bottles and the big plastic Soft Soap bottle.

Also, she much prefers the lids for 5 gal. plastic buckets to regular frisbees. (That is great because we have plenty of them and they get lost in the snow easily - her two real frisbees are long gone and will be found in the spring.)
petaloid
15 years ago
Empty thread spools. Plastic bottle cap rings. Used (bent) twist-ties. Crumpled balls of aluminum foil stolen from the trash.

We love our mischievous, playful kitties!
allison0704
15 years ago
My cats have always loved milk cap rings and straws (bent and end stuck in end to form a triangle).
northy
15 years ago
Our kitty *loves* gift bows, the pre-made stick on kind. He'll rip them right off our Christmas gifts and haul them around the house like trophies. Last time we moved we found a pile of them under the bed :)
Gina_W
15 years ago
My dachshund loves toilet paper/paper towel rolls, cardboard and paper products of any kind, Q-tips, and his all-time fave -- hair scrunchies.

He's not allowed to have stuffed animals because they'll be destroyed in 2 minutes. Old socks with a knot in them are good until they get ripped up, then they go in the trash - otherwise he'll eat the fabric.
todancewithwolves
15 years ago
My dog also loves hair scrunchies. He goes crazy trying to take them out of my hair. He also loves oven mitts. With my other dog, no sock is safe our house.

The cats love Q-tips and empty boxes. They go nuts over DH flip flops ... I wonder why?
tracey_b
15 years ago
A blue robe belt started off as a toy over 20 yrs ago for our then kitten, but evolved into a "woobie" (like a security blanket, I guess). She's never been without it. She pulls it around the house and cries this pathetic, gutteral caterwauling at least once a night with it, sometimes more. It's usually draped over a door knob, until she pulls it off and drags it into the living room--here she is with it. It somehow draped over her when she pulled it off the door knob and stayed on.
petaloid
15 years ago
tracey - what a sweetie, with her security belt. Our girl cat makes the noise you describe when carrying certain toys, and when she was half grown she would drag our bath towels around the house, caterwauling. Mom's cat would do the same with pantyhose.

Hair scrunchies? So that's what I can do with them, now that my hair is short - brilliant!
joepyeweed
15 years ago
My dogs love plastic bottles. They crunch and pop and roll. Its not uncommon to find a crumpled up bottle stuck under the couch or behind a chair.
sue36
15 years ago
The caps to water and plastic soda bottles. Cough drops (Ricola in the little wrappers). Ear plugs. Chapstick. Lobster antennae (hilarious, actually). I could list many more. My cats are nuts. They love their toys as well.
sheltiemom
15 years ago
Our kitty loves pens and pencils. We can never find a pen or a pencil because she has found it first and carried it to one of her "stashes" -- under the couch or under the guest bed.
pamghatten
15 years ago
Anything he can play hockey with, until he gets it under the fridg or stove. Then he spends days with one paw under the appliance trying to get it back. ANd I am NOT moving the stove!
User
15 years ago
My schnauzer LOVES empty water bottles. She will bat them across the floor, and of course when they try to "escape" from her, she will pounce on them, growling and barking. She also loves the big plastic soft drink cups from fast food places. She would love to have stuffed animals, but would have them shredded and eaten in a very short time.

Weird Toys Your Pets Chose for Themselves?

Comments (18)

User

michelle_phxaz

Related Discussions

Elly_NJ

weed30 St. Louis

cat_mom

carmen_grower_2007

petaloid

allison0704

northy

Gina_W

todancewithwolves

tracey_b

petaloid

joepyeweed

sue36

sheltiemom

pamghatten

User

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US