cats / Uncategorized

The Sunday Cat finds a toy for slothful cat people.

annejjacobson9 Comments

Are both you and your cat(s) slothful?   Is your vet making ugly cracks about the cats’ weight and their need for exercise?  But is the very idea of running around with cat toys on string frankly exhausting you?

Here’s a solution.  It’s a safe laser toy that runs for 15 minutes at a time.  It arrived yesterday as the “automatic cat laser toy” from Amazon.com.  You’ll see below a variety of reactions.  Our cats were exhausted for the rest of the evening.

This starts off well:

 

Some cats, however, seem just too in love with sloth:

And for dog people!!!

9 thoughts on “The Sunday Cat finds a toy for slothful cat people.”

  1. I’ve got a laser pointer for my cat, which I use occasionally, and he enjoys it. But I’ve got two concerns: first, couldn’t it be frustrating for a cat to play only with lasers? They chase the dot all over, but they can never catch it. It seems sort of mean. Second, I’m worried about the automatic lasers because the beam can go into a cat’s eyes. I’m careful with the laser pointer not to direct it at his eyes. Does anyone know how long you’d have to look into a laser to get eye damage? I’m probably being over-anxious about both things!

  2. My concerns too, Amy. I think one really needs to avoid having the laser shine into the eye at all. The thing about the Bolt one (clear in the second video) is that the later doesn’t shine out – rather, it is aimed at internal mirror, so what does shine out isn’t the intense laser.

    A second thing about the Bolt (which may be clear in the second video) is that it stops every 30 seconds or so, and the quick cat can at least jump on the spot; near the end it slows way down. So of course they don’t catch the light, but they do get a good amount of exploring time.

    My cats don’t go in for frustration, and they were very excited when it came out twice yesterday. And our little hyper wired one who usually goes through our home one a day banging every door and drawer he can seems more spent. Of course, it’s early days for us.

  3. We had a cat who adored the laser. Then we left her with some energetic student house-sitters for a week and I think they must have played with her constantly using it. She was totally bored by it and knew exactly where the light was coming from when we returned.

  6. My cats love the laser toy, but I don’t play with them using it every day, in order to avoid the boredom effect. They actually know the meaning of the word ‘toy’ and run to the spot where I keep it when I ask if they want to play with the toy. So although they can never catch it they seem to enjoy the game. My strategy is to stand near a stairwell and run them up and down, to give them more exercise. This also reveals my own laziness of course. It can also be fun to run it slowly across the ceiling and observe a number of pairs of cats’ eyes and their heads moving around in sync as they follow it. But I am not clever or multi-handed enough to have captured this on a video.

  8. The thing with a hand held laser pointer is that you are not likely to point it over areas where the cats are forbidden. I think the automatic one doesn’t have a setting for “do not point this way” and could send cats onto the sink and the dining room table and into the the curtains.
    My cats are probably too daft for the thing in the first place since they are pedigrees.

  9. The impact of laser pointers on cats can vary. While most cats will play with them, a few will ignore it and a few others will search for the dot for hours after the laser has been put away.

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