When I had a cat, I used to put her hair clip (the kind that has a spring on top and looks liek interlicking fingers) on one of the cat’s back paws. The cat would run away, but stop every 5-6 steps to try to shake it off. Took her forever to run down the hallway…
I’ve got a remote-control dinosaur from Radio Shack that Elvis just doesn’t care for – he sits on the stairs and watches through narrowed eyes.
Oh, but Echo didn’t tell you the funny one…his Brittany Spaniel (Guinness) chases the laser pointer more enthusiastically than the cats do…and 40 pounds of dog (on stilts like his legs) is WAY funnier that a little 8 or 9 pound cat chasing around the house…
Paper bags on cats heads (watch 'em back around the room)…
As said before, video/audio of birds for either the kitty’s entertainment or the “bird dog’s”…
Woohoo, who needs cable when we’ve got 5 pets?
The game is called “Danger Hole.”
Our cat is a prolific huntress and she plays rough–will scratch and bite. She also loves to get inside cardboard boxes.
To play the game, wait until kitty crawls in a box (or put her in one, although she won’t enjoy the game as much if it’s not her idea). Close the box up tight and wait a minute or two. Then, start scratching the outside of the box, like you’re a mouse or a cat trying to get inside. Then open the top a crack and stick your finger inside. Try to yank it out again before Kitty, primed to pounce, nips you hard.
This cat likes to come off as being “all business”, so it’s really funny (and cute) to watch her go bonkers playing this game. She knows it’s a game–she’s not trying to rip your finger off–but nevertheless, getting caught does hurt. So there’s an element of “playing chicken” for the human involved.
When Kitty’s had enough, she’ll leap out of the box with a mighty pounce and resume her “cooler than thou” persona.
This one is not born from a desire to FF with cat, but out of the need to make her meal last longer then 3 seconds.
Take an old cereal box. Put in a hand of dry cat nibble. Stuff the box with crumpled sheets of paper. The cat will try for hours to get out the paper and get at the nibbles.
The advantage of using a cereal box becomes clear when the cat has moved the box around the room and usually has wedged it against the door. When you come through that door and step on the box, at least you do’n stumble and break your neck.
So do not try this with a glass jar.
I have one of those red laser pointer pens. Both of my cats will chase it around. I will often shine it on the wall along the stairs and they’ll chase it up and down the stairs several times. Since I have to keep my cats indoors I figure this is a good way to give them exercise.
One of my cats will react strangely whenever I use a weird voice, especially when I am in the shower. I’ll start talking like Marvin the Martian, for example, and after awhile he’ll put his paws on the rim of the tub and poke his head through the curtain and meow at me. He must think I turned into another person while behind the curtain.
I can get a couple of my cats to chase the laser… In a tight circle. They’ll spin around and around until they get so dizzy their eyeballs oscillate from side to side when they stop. Hysterical…
I have two cats I tease with the laser pointer. Games to play with the laser pointer:
Whirligig - get the point close to one cat then draw tight circles around the cat. Cat will follow turning almost on itself to catch the light.
Attack your brother(requires multiple cats) - shine the light under the tummy of one cat and leave it there, moving it ever so slightly. Enjoy the hunter’s wind-up of the other cat, and then the confusion as the other cat tries to go under the victim.
Almost got it - let the cat “catch” the light and enjoy its confusion as it realizes that it doesn’t have anything and (if the cat is dark), the light has disappeared. Then move the light by very short jumps and get the cat to move across the room pounce by pounce!
When we’re playing chess and he gets up to go drink out of the toilet, I move his pieces.
He never notices! Ha! Dumb dog!
You need;
A large area of tiled or hardwood floor.
Some empty 2 or 3 litre plastic bottles.
A longhaired cat with lots of fluff on the bottom of his feet.
If you don’t have a cat with fluffy feet, you can put baby socks on it.
Place bottles at one end of floor, pick up kitty and go to other end.
It’s Kitty Bowling Time!!!
Bahahaha! That’s so evil! I love it! 
You guys have already posted most of mine, but no one has mentioned the old “tie the helium filled balloon to the cat’s tail”, yet. It doesn’t usually take them long to remove it, but it’s a lot of fun to watch.
There’s also the BowFace game, where you put the stick-on Christmas bow (the kind that come pre-made with an adhesive paper backing) on the cat’s forehead so that it blocks some of the cat’s view. Again, it doesn’t last long, but it’s a riot watching a cat try to back away from it…all over the house.
Probably most of you won’t be able to do this one, but Ferret_Herder might want to try it. Insert the front half of a ferret into a long sock. Ferrets being ferrets, the other half will soon follow. (You might have to hold the end open, to make it look like a tunnel.) Until they get to the toe of the sock. Then the fun begins, as they try to back out of a sock that’s moving with them or turn around in a sock the really isn’t big enough to allow that. This one is good for at least five minutes, and is really good when a weasel has been hyper (and driving you nuts) for two hours. It isn’t good for the sock, though.
Another one is Spin the Weasel. Much like Kitty Bowling, but simpler. Just put the ferret on its back, on a slick floor, and spin away. Some seem to kind of like it; some don’t.
My cat loves the laser pointer also. We used to be able to get him to chase it, at a dead sprint: across the floor, along the top of the couch, up his floor-to-ceiling cat tower, onto the top platform, and off into the air, whereupon he’d fall ass-first down the wall with his claws screeching the plaster. Hilarious.
But when I really want to mess with him, I get out the Big Bird hand puppet. It’s his arch-nemesis, the only time he’s allowed to wrestle with one of us using his claws. He loves it, though if you do it for too long, he gets “overstimulated” and freaks out. Even so, it’s the one thing in the house he’s willing to play fetch with: a bit of wrestling, throw it, he brings it back for more wrestling. He even used to carry it around the house, maul it briefly, and then sit on it in triumph.
Grab a cat’s tail. Mine hate that.
I didn’t really do this to fuck with my cats, but it was funny anyway. I used to live in a 3rd floor apartment with a balcony, and I wanted to take my cats out on the balcony with me, but I was a little leery that they would jump and fall, as they were rumbunctious youngsters at the time. So I went to my pet supply store and bought figure 8 harnesses and leashes. I put the harnesses on. One of the cats refused to move at all, and the other just squirmed around the room backward trying to get out of the damn thing.
We never made it to the balcony.
Another thing to do to fuck with the dog:
Put a small piece of cheese on his back. It takes him a while to figure out where the cheese is sometimes. My dog ain’t that smart.
Poor Gizmo. No wonder he won’t eat.
- Watch dog beg for food.
- Smirk.
- Do you really want this?
- Really really?
- Dog growls and whines, nodding happily.
- Ok…
- Break off a piece of food, stick it in the collar.
- Watch dog go nutzo.
- Die laughing.
10.Repeat as necesary.
Cut leg and tail holes in big purple and green sock - stuff in 7 week old kitten - hilarity ensues
Hide under bearskin rug - wait for unsuspecting cat to mosey down hallway
Taunt kitten with large sock monkey - wow, he hates that sock monkey.
Put large picture of cat on computer wallpaper - show it to other cat, who becomes quite disconcerted that big sister’s inside the computer
Make loud noise as cat approaches object in obviously tense manner
Wait until ca’ts taken a dump to change litter - rattle new litter suggestively until cat jumps in and trys to sqeeze off another one
Force dog to sniff pencil eraser. Because dog hates smell of pencil eraser.
Order dog into box 1/2 her length.
Train dog to squish cat with her nose.
Put sunglasses on Cocker spaniel’s docked tail - can’t seem to get him to walk backwards, though.
Tease clownfish with laser pointer
Camry the kitten is just too easy. Touch his tail to his nose. Put honey or jelly on a straw. Put socks on his feet.
Plunkette the stoic is unflappable. Except when you turn on the shower when he’s chilling out in the tub.
I give my Norwegian Elk Hound calculus problems to solve, but (here’s the tricky part) I make them relatively easy to solve. Then, I give him word problems with contradictory statements.
Ha ha! Watching him look at the paper and then at me and then at the paper and seeing his face all screwed up in confusion is a HOOT!
My Lab can’t even do the easy calculus problems! Dumb dawg!