When I say my cat is lazy, I mean laaazyyy.. He’s not a big fan of anything besides napping, and even when he knows he needs exercise (and I know he knows because he whines at me to play!) he’s still not willing to put the effort in to get started himself.
It might sound like I’m exaggerating, but I assure you I am not. Once, my father took it as a personal challenge to get Avery to play with him when I knew Avery wasn’t in the mood to play – my father tried for an hour or so straight, no go. This cat is legitimately the laziest thing you’ll ever see in your life.
I’ve written a handful of articles on this blog already about lazy cats, how to encourage them to start playing – all that jazz – and I’ll likely write countless more. “Write what you know,” right? And boy do I know my lazy cat.
My point in telling you all this? It’s hard enough to get my cat to play with me. To play by himself – that’s a whole other ballgame. It’s seriously pretty much a miracle whenever my cat swats at an object for even 2-3 seconds by himself. And while it’s the kind of thing that rarely ever happens, and I really do mean rarely – maybe once or twice a month? – the aluminum foil ball is, to date, the only cat toy I’ve ever DIYed that he’s actually bothered to play with himself. Ever.
I often wonder if Avery happens to like a specific toy just a little if those are the kinds of things other cats go crazy over. So pretty much, I’m wondering how your cats at home feel about aluminum foil balls. Do they love them? Engage a little bit? Are they one of the only things they’ll play with by themselves or will they only play with them when you’re rolling ’em here and there?
Never made one? Give it a shot. How is pretty obvious, but I’ll do a quick 2-second rundown anyway.
Take a piece of aluminum foil –
Crinkle it up –
And make it into a ball.
Yup, that simple of course. You can decide whether to have the ball very tightly packed in, or if you’d rather, it can be less packed and bigger. You can have a number to see which your cat prefers.
Ironically, my cat seems to prefer the variation of this DIY that’s not “on the menu” so to speak. He likes the pancake sitting at the end of this photo that resulted after an accidental squish when I stepped on it with slippers on –
Ridiculous, I know, but he’s a Canadian cat so maybe he’s just really into hockey & pucks.
Anyway, to get pictures of my cat for this article, playing with a toy he’s supposed to be the most interested in playing with by himself over all other home-made cat toys I’ve made yet, I obviously have to call the cat over.
I wait until he’s in a “playful” mood. How do I know he’s in one? Because he’s the one who called me into the living room to play by meowing. Okay great, so I have a cat who knows he wants me to engage him in play time. Time to call the fella over to the carpet where playtime happens.
He ignores me, actin’ all cute and pretending he doesn’t hear, then eventually, when he hears the crinkling of the aluminum foil, comes over to inspect and figure out if anything interesting is happening.
Oh and STARES at the ball when I pass it to him multiple times. Nothing else. Great kitty, thanks for this – at least you bothered to come over after ignoring me. That’s some initiative.
With enough prodding, you know, teasing with the ball for around 5 solid minutes, I actually manage to get the picture below, and a couple other “action” shots of him playing. But don’t be deceived, he really is lazy, I do promise you that. Genuinely, he played for about 20 seconds, tops – even after another 10 minutes of me trying to get him to engage with the aluminum foil ball.
Eventually I just give up, and take a few pictures of him posing with all the variations of the aluminum foil ball. If he looks crabby, that’s not because he’s annoyed. Trust me, he’s actually just a grumpy old man inside; that’s his regular face.
After a few shots like that, I go back to attempting to get him to play. To which –
Ah yes, so bored of my attempts to play with him that he actually starts to clean himself.
I finally give up. Go to upload the pictures to write up this post, and about 2 minutes in, I hear the crinkling of the aluminum foil – he’s poking the roll. Then another minute or so in, he actually starts kicking the “pancake” once, twice – about three or four times in total.
Of course, kitty. Never for the camera.
alumnum foils have food under them yo, every cat know that.
One of my tuxedo boys is so obsessed with foil that if we have a candy that comes in a foil, he’ll dig through the garbage to get it. I’ve made several foil balls out of lots of wrappers and he goes wild for them. Sounds like I’m lucky that’s one of the few substances he *hasn’t* tried to eat.
Aluminum foil is NOT safe for cats! My sister’s cat ingested a small bit of aluminum foil and almost died due to gastric obstruction. Needed $1,000 surgery!! There is a lot of info about the danger to cats:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Aluminum+Foil+Balls+dangerous+for+cats&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1
It really depends on whether your particular cat bites or chews on the aluminum foil, and if it starts to fall apart, like any toy, you really need to remove it from the vicinity of the cat so the cat doesn’t swallow pieces that have fallen off.
I think there’s a safe way for aluminum foil balls to be played with. As with any toy, there will be some cats that treat them very harshly and tear them to shreds, and there will be some who simply kick and hit them and play with them in a manner that doesn’t posit danger. You should definitely watch your cat to make sure he or she is not chewing the foil ever, and if he or she does, especially if it’s more than a single bite once in a blue moon, remove the ball. But if your cat is anything like mine, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Hope that makes sense!
I have an ultra stimulating environment….a dark unfinished old basement, three floors and lots of homemade toys and a real tree.
Through sitting through the same scenario you describe, wondering why you are playing and the cat is just staring, disinterested, is like watching a depressed dog.
So I have done experimenting to the max. Each of my cats is different. The six year old is seriously the best hockey/soccer player ever. It would be worth a video.
So he likes you to play with him to a point.
The young one has hunting in her blood and actually reacts badly to some overstimulating toys.
They get bored pretty quickly with a new toy. My young one likes paper crumpled and likes light things tossed into air that replicate catching something live…..again, I have to watch for over stimulation as she exhibits Hyperestesia traits..
She prefers foily gum wrappers to real foil. She likes tiny things that are partially hidden. I also have taken to play in the dark or semi dark, so toys have that mistery of dark on dark yet moving.
Or dragging a ropy thing along the edge of a thick carpet usually gets them going.
They need and want the mystery, just like that sneaky elusive mouse that they are going to pounce on.
They like that ropy thing pulled under a carpet…..their ears hear it, their senses feel the vibration and they wiggle their buts and pounce, dead onto the hidden rope, every time.
So for me, it’s semi dark, lots of homemade mice with leather tails, and the fake mice are half hiding under a carpet, being pushed by a stick, or that tiny gum wrapper flicked with a finger shot.
letting a tiny foam ball bounce down the stairs.
paper cut into spirals and then further twisted gently into a spring shape and dangling off something.
But it’s the birds outside that evoke the chirps and mouth quivering and tail swishing in the young one.
I might have to catch some birds and let them fly in the house to cause for frenzy entertainment.
I’m getting bored with entertaining.
This comment is too good – I love it.
You have tried ever so many methods – I wonder if I could have you over to try cracking Avery’s code for what he prefers. So far it’s poking under rugs that does the trick the most – or well, that’s the flavour of the month right now since he gave up feather wands and springs.
It sounds to me like you could write a novel on cat entertaining. These felines really do rule the house..
Exactly, flavor of the month. Just like people.
Even outdoors, if there is nothing moving that is alive, a cat is bored and just waits for something to come along and I’m not about to go and buy a real mouse at a petshop.
My guys are lucky as mice will enter in the fall, so they can stay up all night in the kitchen to try and catch them.
I will only go so far with entertainment and hope they get bored enough to get the zoomies.
There is one toy I made (well purely by accident) is sticking two chairfoot felt pads together really well and rolling it along the floor. It’s also something that they can get a nail into and toss around. Also if you step on them, it doesn’t hurt.
But I gotta admit, I now have 10 of them laying on the floor and nobody cares.
Possibly we should hide the boring toys and bring them out in another few months.
It is too cute the way they sit and watch as you are making things, but then stick their noses up at the creation.
I will definitely give the chair foot felt pads a shot! That sounds like something Avery might go for, especially since it’s flat, but an interesting texture and moves oddly enough.
I do try to hide the boring toys and rotate in and out, but it gets a little tricky to do when you forget what your cat used to like playing with and it’s in the back of the enormous toy drawer you’ve put together. I need some kind of a rotation going.
And yes absolutely is hilarious when they watch you, completely interested as you’re making something, and then don’t touch it when you’re done. People-watching is certainly more interesting to most of them than actually playing haha.
my cat adores them:) chases them all over the place and hides them too:)
Aw! Must be cute to find them hiding out in strange places.