I had a black cat named Spam who loved to play tag. She’d come racing through the house and swipe against my leg as she went by. That was my signal to follow.
Up the stairs she’d go and I’d come up on all fours (Please don’t tell anyone about this) and go from room to room peeking around doors until she’d eventually decide I’d found her and jump out at me, tag me and race off again.
I never got to win. In fact, sometimes I’d be slowly peeking around the door and she’d be right there, knowing right where my face would appear.
But that doesn’t involve a toy so I guess it’s off subject.
My husband uses a Passy-Muir valve (link goes to a site for a tracheostomy medical device, no yick factor, just a heads-up) to speak easily with his tracheostomy. It’s just a little plastic cap that fits over the end of his trach tube.
With his first one we didn’t realize that there’s a “leash” you can attach to it to avoid what happened next. He has a strong cough (a good thing), and we were sitting in the living room one day when he coughed and wheee, it flew off the end of the tube and shot across the room, where both cats immediately attacked it and eventually knocked it under the coffee table while he and I collapsed with laughter
My cat loves yarn balls. Especially when I’m trying to knit a hat! Oh and she’ll take my hair ties off the nightstand and play with them. Helps that we have wood floors and they skid pretty far.
Our German Shepherd loves to carry around things. At some point we began referring to her toys/things as her baby. I could say, “get your baby” and she would run off and grab a toy. She also likes to shake soft stuffed animal toys. I watched for the shaking behavior and taught her, “shake your baby” as a command.
When friends with youngsters come to visit, I put her toys away except for a soft baby doll I bought at a yard sale. When we’re all sitting around relaxing I say, “get the baby!!” She goes to her toy area and retrieves the baby doll. Then I say, “shake the baby!!” And she does. Maybe you have to be there.
We bought those “as seen on TV” static dusters at Target. Minerva loves the big one and carries it around proudly like she killed it. We can put it away in the closet and she will retrieve it (closet door doesn’t shut well) and we will find it at the food of our bed or at the top of the stairs.
Years ago we bought a 100 pc box of colored bendy straws from IKEA for all of $2 or something. I think we used about ten of them if that until a month or two ago. Then our three year old found the box and likes to take one and play with it. Then the cat grabs it and runs around the house with it. Then she eventually plays with it by the front room rug until she pushes it under the rug, can’t get it out, the little guy wants to know where his straw is and grabs another one. Then the cycle begins anew. I lifted the rug once and found about twenty of them stuffed under there before I figured out what was happening.
Then again, the little guy chases the cat down the hall, then she chases him back the other direction, back and forth, back and forth (yeesh, those two). So I suppose he counts as a cat toy himself.
My late dog (a bitch) loved to chew on unplugged electric plugs. I could never catch her on it.
About once a year I could get her to fetch something 3 or 4 times. After the 4th time she would spit it out at my feet as if to say “There, that’s the last thing I’m fetching this year!”
We recently helped rescue a chihuahua puppy from a garbage dumpster. She is currently finding pretty much anything to be a chew toy, and we’re having to make her focus on other things. That said, the Scooby-Doo tater tot plush she likes was not originally to be a dog toy, but it works pretty well as one. We also let her play with her chew treats.
But the biggest unintentional toy is our other dog–a dachshund. He hated her for a while, but now he lets her play with him a lot. Sure, we decided to keep the puppy to keep the dachshund from being bored or sad after our other chihuahua died, but we didn’t expect such a fast turn around.
My older kitty loves to play with stuffed animals (he has a few of his own, but also steals them from my girls), and my long hair. It is dangerous to snuggle with him on the bed, he is all cuddles until that moment…must…kill…hair. One day he’s going to get me in the eye with his claws.
My younger kitty will systematically knock anything & everything off the table. She will chase crumpled paper balls, and her favourite, crumpled candy wrappers. Going from Halloween to starting the advent calendar has been like Christmas for her She is also a traditionalist, loving balls of yarn. My daughter recently started knitting, one day kitty thought the ball of yarn looked like a great prize. She ran away with it, winding it all around the furniture downstairs and trying to carry it upstairs. It reached a knot though where it wouldn’t unwind further. She got 1/3 of the way upstairs, stretching it more and more tight, until it pulled her back down to the bottom. She looked confused, tried again twice more with the same backlash. So she gave up, and killed it where it lay at the bottom of the stairs.
Reading these made me wish I had the $$ for vet bills for a dozen kitties. 2 is not enough!
Allie likes wads of paper, and keeps stealing a particular small stuffed animal from me. She also loves ponytail holders (I try to keep them away from her, but can be absent-minded and she’s very persistent).
I had another cat who liked playing fetch with balls of foil.
Felix (current cat’s predecessor) couldn’t have cared less about laser pointers. He’d just look at the dot, then look at my hand with the “yeah, right, whatever, Mom” expression.
I’ve got another two cats that love batting around those plastic milk circles. Also any small furry thing that has the audacity to show it self in their territory.
Old cat does the same kind of thing with folded pairs of socks. She’ll hold a pair in her mouth go “mmMMROWL” until you take it away from her. I don’t think it’s “look at my baby,” thing, though, at least not with my cat. I think it’s a “look, I killed this thing!” thing.
Old cat does that to get attention. If you fall asleep with the door closed and her in room, for example, you’ll wake up to the sound of change hitting the floor. If you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you’ll wake up to the sound of something small and fragile shattering on the floor.
Younger cat does the same thing to rugs. I love watching her do it.
General Sterling Price, our male ragdoll kitty loves black shoelaces, drinking straws and pens. Blueberry, our female Siamese mix loves sporks, insists (very vocally) on drinking out of the bathtub faucet and will beg for Craisins.
We had a little Bichon that absolutely loved playing fetch with rolled up pairs of socks. The way he’d come over with them in his mouth looking so lonely and forlorn would always get us to toss them around and play tug of war with him.
She is also a traditionalist, loving balls of yarn. My daughter recently started knitting, one day kitty thought the ball of yarn looked like a great prize. She ran away with it, winding it all around the furniture downstairs and trying to carry it upstairs. It reached a knot though where it wouldn’t unwind further. She got 1/3 of the way upstairs, stretching it more and more tight, until it pulled her back down to the bottom. She looked confused, tried again twice more with the same backlash. So she gave up, and killed it where it lay at the bottom of the stairs.