The soft and agile body, the flexible claws, the large and strong fangs and excellent vision and hearing, these characteristics of the cats make them natural hunters. They are smart and alert, they yearn for freedom. But now cats as a domestic animal have had a hard time having the opportunity to show their hunter attributes. They can only spend time sleeping and dazing.

With the deepening of people's understanding of cats, some owners started to prepare some toys for their own masters to help them release their instincts and instincts, but found that the toys bought back rarely attracted the interest of cats. Many toy cats also played for a day or two Will not touch it.

Only prey, no toys

As we have mentioned before, cats are born hunters, so in the world of cats, there is no concept of play, and no such thing as toys exists. All behaviors that we humans see as entertainment are actually cats doing hunting training. Because cats are solitary animals and they are smaller, their hunting success rate in nature is very low. Only by continuously practicing your own hunting skills can you increase the success rate of hunting to survive in nature. Studies have shown that most cats spend at least eight hours a day practicing hunting skills.

Although most cats do not have the pressure to survive, this blood instinct has been passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, when choosing toys for cats, you must pay attention to their instincts. That is, the toys you choose for them must be more like prey that they can hunt in nature.

This toy generally has the following three characteristics:

First, the toys must be moveable so that the cat treats them as prey.

Second, the surface of the toy is covered with feathers or fur. This appearance is closer to the prey that the cat can kill in nature, and it can attract the cat's attention.

Third, the smell that cats like. Felines are very sensitive to smell, so when choosing a toy, the owner can consider products that incorporate the cat's favorite odor into the toy, such as catnip or alfalfa.

At present, there are many types of cat toys on the market, but there are not many products that can integrate these three characteristics into toys. Most of them have only one or two. Therefore, the owner can try toys with different combinations of characteristics according to the characteristics of his cat.Such as leather mice (will move + the surface is covered with fur), stuffing toys (will move + the smell of cats) and so on.

In addition, it should be noted that cat toys must be sturdy and can withstand the cat's grasp, bite, slap, and pounce. Those toys that are easy to fall off are easily ingested by cats and accidents occur.

How to play with cat toys?

Although there are thousands of types of cat toys, they can be roughly divided into three types in terms of usage:

The first is interactive, that is, toys that require the owner to play with the cat, such as funny cat sticks and handheld laser lights, are more typical interactive cat toys.

The second is a self-entertainment type, which is a toy that cats can play without the help of others, such as leather mice, cat tables, electric balls, and so on. This toy is more suitable for office workers or owners who don't have much time to play with cats.

The third type is an automatic operation type. This type of toy is a toy that can attract the cat's attention through its own movement. The electric funny cat stick and trackball we usually see are this type of toy.

The three types of toys have their own advantages, and each owner can choose different toys according to the situation of his family and the characteristics of the cat. The first type of interactive toys is suitable for families who are not very busy and have time to play with cats. The second and third types of toys are suitable for office workers or families who don't have time to spend with cats.

In addition, when using interactive toys, the owner needs to pay attention to the method of using the toy, because the toy may be different in the eyes of the owner and the cat. Therefore, it is necessary for the owner to learn to adopt a method suitable for his own cat and correctly guide the cat to use toys. Depending on the nature of the toy and the cat's usual habits, measures can be taken to attract the cat's attention. For example, we can use cat sticks to imitate the movements of animals such as snakes and rats to stimulate the hunting nature of cats.

The new cat and the old cat

A cat is a very curious animal. It likes freshness and loves old and new. He Jun, a well-known domestic pet trainer, once mentioned in a lecture that cats need 21 different toys throughout their lives, which is based on this characteristic of cats. If only one toy is prepared, there is no way to satisfy the cat.

Dudu's suggestion is to give the cat at least three different toys every day to practice "hunting", and at least to ensure that the types of toys are not the same every week. And each kind of toy can't let the cat play for too long at a time, it is best to let the cat play a toy for no more than ten minutes, so as to keep the cat's interest in toys.

In fact, it is not just cats. Many domestic animals that have become pets after human domestication actually retain some of their former instincts, but the living environment suppresses this part of their instincts. Therefore, pet owners should consider issues from their perspective in daily life, and release their instincts when conditions allow, so that they can enjoy life more freely and more comfortably.