Conference misery::feline_v1

    Bailey likes any of my personal items she can chew on, gloves, etc.
    (Note 469, I think)  Actually she likes the center for a 45 rpm record
    (you know the thing you put in so the record will fit on a stereo).
    She likes it when I toss it in the air, she usually catches it mid-air.  
    She also likes the two round plastic ends that came off my small mirror.
    They're small enough to be carried around but large enough not to
    be swallowed.  Pens and mechanical pencils are fun too.  I caught her 
    chewing on the bristles of Amelia's toothbrush the other day and am 
    trying to encourage this (now if I could just get buffalo breath
    Amelia to do this).
    
    Amelia loves pens and pencils, Q-tips (which I'm constantly taking
    away from her), anything she can shove under the refridgerator.
    My lottery ticket was her favorite plaything yesterday.  She also
    has an affinity for the "mythical" mice we have running around the
    apartment.
    
    Actually I have some nerf type golf balls that I throw for Bailey
    that she chases and brings back to me.  Amelia plays soccer with
    them (and never brings them back).  I bought these in a package
    of four at my local Safeway and rolled them in catnip when they
    first came out of the packge to get rid of the "new rubber" type
    smell.  They seem to really like these.
    
    Also, I've gotten a couple of toys from cat shows that they like.
    The toughie mice were fun till Bailey chewed the tails off (she
    didn't swallow these, I think the cord was too thick) but once the
    tails were gone all that was left was a lump of grey stuff they
    ignored.  Their current favorite is a stick with some dangly rubber
    band type things on the end.  Bailey is fascinated with the dangly
    things and her eyes never leave them.  She'll chase those things
    any where I move them.  Amelia will bat at the dangly things a couple
    of times to humor me but she actually prefers the stick end to play
    with.  Its funny to watch her carrying this thing around in her
    mouth by the stick end and Bailey chasing after the dangly end.
    This particular toy is only available to them when I'm with them
    due to the rubber band type stuff on the end.
    
    I've never tried to make anything since they seem to make their
    own (mostly non-dangerous) toys but I've heard of people using toilet
    paper rolls (the empty ones of course) as toys.
    
    Jan
    

    I buy my cats toys at the cat shows.  Their favorite alltime toy
    is a peacock feather (must be replaced often).  Winston will drag
    the feather around by the stalk end and Joui will chase after them.
    
    Second favorite toy, fur spiders on elastic string.  They have to
    have at least one of these things hanging in their benching cage
    at the show.  We also have them hanging from hooks on the shelves
    of our cat tree.  One of the funniest situations I have ever witnessed
    with a cat toy occured a few weeks ago with my kitten Joui.  She
    was only about 3 months old and the cat tree is large (9 feet tall
    with three shelves)  She had finally mastered climbing the three
    feet up to the first shelf and was now trying to reach out and grab
    the furry spider hanging from the upper shelf (the shelves are offset
    and her little arms weren't long enough to reach it.)  Hanging on
    by one paw, she flung herself out after the spider and grabbed it.
    Then she proceeded to climb down off the tree with the spider in
    her mouth heading in the direction of the living room.  The spider
    was connected to the tree by an elastic band which stetched out
    as she walked down the hall.  Pretty soon the band was completely
    stretched out but that didn't stop Joui!  She just laid her ears
    back, flattened her body to the carpet and kept going!!!  I have
    never seen such determination!  She got about halfway down the hall
    before the spider came flying out of her mouth back into the bedroom
    with her in hot pursuit!!!
    
    Enough about spiders, I think you get the idea.  Ping pong balls
    make great cat toys.  As do old socks with catnip rolled up in them.
    I also buy my cats the real fur mice, they are small with short
    fur and the cats love them.  They love them so much that they eat
    them up.
    
    Cat shows always have a great selection of the good cat toys. 
    Jo Ann

    
    Mine always liked pipe cleaners.  Had to be white though, the various
    colored ones must have tasted different or not very good, so try
    white.  Can be purchased at grocery or drug store.  Just curl around
    you finger then give to cat.  Very light weight.  They had a great
    time with those things.
    
    

    Eirene loves those little furry mice. She stalks them and attacks
    them plays with them, "kills" them and then lines them all up outside
    my bedroom door. In the morning, she'll sit there proudly purring
    about her "kills" until I praise her and tell her what a brave kitty
    and mightly hunter she is.
    
    My cats also like the "Galikie Kitty Tease" that I got at a cat
    show. (It is advertized in cat magazines, but is about $2 cheaper
    at the show). Esentially, it is a 4 foot fiberglass fishing pole
    with a denim bow tied to the end. Even the most dignifed of cats
    (a.k.a Pip and Argus J. Pussycat, Esq.) go crazy with it.
    
    Deb

Ping-pong balls are the favorites of our kittens, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern.  They never get tired of batting them all over the
house, especially at 3:00 AM.  They've also learned to pick them
up in their mouths and carry them around the house.  A very strange
sight indeed!

They also like wine corks.  Whenever we start to open a bottle of wine,
they come running.  Rosencrantz loves to play catch with them.  He's 
become quite a good outfielder.

    Nebula likes a wiffle ball that I pushed a jingle bell inside of
    (through one of the holes - the wiffle ball was cracked there anyhow,
    which is how it got to be a cat toy).  Neb likes to play soccer
    with this thing, running along with it between her feet, jingling
    away, and then rolling over on it and wrestling with it with her
    hind legs.  This is a riot to watch (unless you were trying to sleep
    at the time!).
    
    The Fickle prefers pingpong balls.  She will roll them back to you
    if you roll them at her (when she feels like it, anyways).

    Aside from the regular real-fur mice (I remove eyes and nose so
    they won't get swallowed), and the stolen emery boards and Q-tips,
    the All Time Favorite is...either Baggies ties or the plastic ties
    for large garbage bags.
    
    I twist the Baggies (wire wrapped with paper), or connect the 
    plastic into a circle.  Either way, all the cats have a field day
    batting them around the kitchen, bathroom, down the halls, and
    especially under dressers that they can't *quite* get under.
    
    None of my try to eat them or I'd keep the wire Baggies ties away
    from them.
    
    [Forget this idea if you have a fully carpeted home -- unless you
    want a neat method to train your cats to play on the kitchen
    counters!!!]
    
    Almost forgot:  catnip in the toe of a used stocking foot.
    
    	Penelope

    Almost forgot this one. Hartz sells a styrofoam ball covered in
    brightly colored flannel. I remember giving one to Panther on his
    first Christmas. He was maybe about 3 months old and the ball was
    bigger than he was. He somehow held onto it with his mouth and strutted
    all over the house with it for days. As he stutted around with it,
    he growled, mighty hunter that he imagined himself to be. He looked
    so cute with it that I decided to change his name to C.L. Panther
    (C.L.= Cute Little). So far, he's gone through 3 puff balls and
    still struts around with them same way as he did when he was a kitten.
    
    Deb

	For non-purchased  (for  cat,  that  is)  toys,  Becky likes the
    little  piece  of  plastic that comes off the top of milk containers
    (you  know,  that  little peel-strip you have to take off so you can
    pop  the  top off). Josh is pretty heavily into Q-tips. He'll search
    the  trash  if  he  suspects there might be one lurking in there. He
    then  chews  them  up so the stick part is all bent out of shape and
    leaves them where he knows I'll step on them.

	For purchased  toys,  Becky  has  a  favorite real-fur mouse. In
    fact, I tried to replace it this Christmas, but she's not inerested.
    The  original  one  looks as though it's been through chemotherapy -
    it's  almost  bald.  It  has  been  fished out of the toilet several
    times  (looks really gross floating there!!), showered upon, stepped
    upon, and toted all around the house.

	Josh goes  absolutely  APE  over a felt mouse I got at Erikson's
    Grain  Mill  in  Acton.  It's  a  cube of felt about 1.25 * 1.0 * .5
    inches  in  size,  has  a  short  string  tail  (the  first  part to
    disappear) and little felt ears. He'll play fetch with this thing or
    days!
    
	Both of them enjoy the nerf-style golf balls. (It's fun to throw
    them  from  the  livingroom  into  the kitchen and watch the sliding
    stops against the far wall!!)

    Tyler and Sasha both *love* the plastic off of milk containers,
    too!  It rolls and throws and is easy to carry!
    
    Sasha also takes after a cat I used to have (may he rest in peace).
    She *loves* fuzzballs, alias puffballs, alias pompoms.  These are
    balls about 1 inch in diameter that can be purchased at hobby shops.
    They come in nasty plastic-feel or nice soft something else.
    I had bought a huge bag right before Timothy passed away, and they
    are all pink.  Sasha loves pink, and plays with these for hours,
    either by herself, or playing fetch or catch with us.
    
                    Carol

    We here in outer Cambridge don't seem to have milk cartons with
    the Handy-Dandy Plastic Rings for Cats.  We just open one corner
    that is folded inside.  Nothing to roll, throw, or carry, except
    the carton itself, and that hasn't caught anyone's attention yet.
    
    What kind of goodies do you people and cats have out there???
    
    	Penelope

    My boys also love plastic milk rings, and Q-tips.  Another favourite
    home made toy is plastic drinking straws that I tie in a knot. 
    There are no fewer than a dozen of these under my sofa right now.
    I sometimes give them the straw un-knotted, but the knotted ones
    seem to get their attention better.
    
    For store bought, the Dr. Daniel's catnip mouses (there are two
    of those under the same sofa...).
    
    Mary

    Re:.11
    
    Penelope,

	 Send me your address and I'll send some of the plastic rings to
     you  -  I  don't like Becky to play with them cuz she eats them and
     who knows what they do when they get inside her!

				Kathy

    re .14

	 'Mother's perogative'  to  worry when one sees the entire piece
     disappearing down the gullet of a kitty.

    Those 'real fur' mice seem to 'disappear' inside my cats - right
    down to the plastic form that is inside.  (So far I don't think
    they have eaten the plastic form...)  I had to stop giving them
    the real fur mice cause i think it encourages fur balls.
    Most of the toys listed above have been eaten eventually.  The
    plastic ties for garbage bags seem to last.  I had never thought
    of making a circle - have to try that - although flat they don't
    hurt so much to step on!  (Anything for the cats...)  I found
    another toy that they haven't eaten yet.  It is a 16 or 20 inch
    cheap chain (the kind that turns green after you wear it once).
    They drag it around and jump on it and chase each other with it
    all over the kitchen - and eventually hide it under a rug.
    
    Sally

    I forgot what used to be one of my critters' favorite toys, before
    they "hid" all of them - write-rings from magtapes!  Nebula especially
    liked one which I had attached a jingle bell on a short string to.
    It was especially funny if you put the write-ring over her head
    so that the jingle-bell followed her around!  She would tow it all
    over until she got tired, and then flip if off of her head and chomp
    on it for a while.  JFCL, who is too big to wear a write ring, would
    carry it around in her mouth.  I don't know where all the write-rings
    got to, but it has been a while since I moved the cat-tree out from
    the wall, so they are probably back there - the balls are usually
    under the sofa.

    Kathy,
    
    I tried sending you mail but my system didn't recognize COSBY::
    for some reason.
    
    I'm at MLO5-5/E76 or home at 85 Trowbridge St, Cambridge.
    
    Cosette, Fantine, Nutmeg, and Tag-Along await their new toys!
    
    Thanks,
    		Penelope

A ball of foil works great, too!  Especially if you take a string, and tie 
several knots in one and, then wrap the foil around the knots, resulating in a 
ball with a tail.  Also, if you make the string real long, you can hang the 
ball at cat's-eye level.  One of my 2 goes crazy for this one, and spends 
hours batting it around.  The other NEVER touches the ball but chases the 
shadow like crazy.

						     
							- JP

We don't let our cats have foil or twist-ties.  Izzy loves the plastic
strip from a can of frozen orange juice.  (The thing you pull off to remove
the end-cap.)  He also likes pens or drinking straws.  If you set down your
drink, he will spot you from 30 feet away and come over and swipe the straw
out of your glass.  Likewise if you put down a pen, he will carry it off. 
Most of this stuff ends up under the plastic runner by the front door. I
always take the straws away from him so he won't poke himself with it. 

Both cats like the plastic balls with catnip inside.  Hartz sells these.
They will bat these around soccer-style, or hug them while kicking with
their hind feet.  These usually end up behind the sofas.  We have to pick
them up before going to bed or the cats will play with them in the
wood-floored kitchen at 3am, waking us up with the noise. 

Catnip-filled cloth things are popular until the smell wears off.  Then we
carefully loosen the stitching in one corner and replace the built-in
catnip (usually inferior grade stuff) with fresh catnip and sew it up
again.

    Patches favorite toy is bat-a-bird.  Its a foam filled bird on an
    elastic string which I tape to the bottom of my coffee table.  She
    will play with it until she has removed the eyes, nose, beak and
    the wings, then its time for another.  She likes the foil balls also,
    I will throw them and she picks them up in her mouth and returns
    them like a dog would do with a stick, god forbid if I ever thru
    the ties away from the rubbish bags and platic rings from the O.J.
    cartons.  A word of caution with strings, Patches loves to eat
    them.  She used to play with old belt ties from my dresses, dragging
    them all over the place until I woke up one morning and had to pull
    half of the belt from her mouth.  She was biting it and could not
    break it in half so continued to chew and chew.  Fortunately the
    whole thing came out.  The same thing happen one day with my shoe
    string, she managed to break that if half and I haven't been able
    to find the other half.  Now I am cautious about long strings.
    One more thing, finger nail files.
    
    Judy
    

    Mutu's favorite toys are pipe cleaners and test tube brushes!!
    Munch likes only blue catnip mice (!) and Mutu!!
    
    J.
    

  My husband and I just bought our two 11-week-old kittens two spherical 
dice.  They're basically a 1-inch wide ball that has a ball bearing inside
to force the dice to land on a "side".  The kittens love 'em!  We got
them at the hobby shop at the Royal Ridge Mall for $1 a piece.

  The only trouble is that they require "adult supervision" - I left them
alone with one for a few minutes, and we haven't found it yet!

--Sharon, Ben, and Jerry