Each other.
Cardboard boxes.
Ribbons.
Anything that can be batted around a hard floor.
This poor poor houseplant.
My cat loves balls that he can chase around the house. He doesn’t seem to have a particular one that’s his favorite, although he seems to like the plastic ones with bells that jingle when he bats them. They came in a pack of seven, but now three have disappeared, probably to be found under some furniture years from now.
My black lab Nash will grab anything I’ve worn on my feet. Socks, flipflops, shoes…
Hermes loves chasing little Superballs. He’s learned that if you bounce them at him, he can hit them downwards and make them bounce higher. Pepper Mill bought a bunch of them at Halloween a few years ago. They were painted like bloodshot eyeballs, with the result that we have a huge number of disembodied bloodshot eyes rolling around on our floors.
She also bought a bag full of plastic spiders, which are also hidden away in various corners of the house.
Of all the toys I bought for my Bernese Mountain Dog Bernie, his absolute favorite and pretty much the only one he played with was a cylindrical squeaky toy, about eight inches long, with a short length of thick rope with a handle on it on one end so you could play tug-of-war with him. It had knobby protrusions all over it so his teeth could get a really good grip on it.
Whenever a friend came over to visit, he would always follow the same procedure – run to the door to see who it was, and if it was a familiar friend, after the necessary joyful greeting, he would immediately run to the back of the house and come running back with the squeaky toy, squeaking away like mad, ready to play. The amazing thing is that he always knew exactly where it was. I was worried about it ever getting lost or damaged, because I haven’t seen anything exactly like it in the many years since.
My roommate quit cigars and floats between Epipes or Ecigars. Some use flavor cartridges that have silicon caps on both ends. Maybe 3/8" diameter by 3/8" height. Cupcake the Destroyer loves batting them around and chasing them. And chewing on them. BUT she tries to eat them. They don’t digest or pass through, they have to be removed surgically. The first time, Rooms started throwing them away properly. The second time, we found her secret stash and there hasn’t been a recurrence.
Oh, we learned she’ll put up with a cone for only so long before she gets rid of it.
Mort, my cat, if far too cool for toys. I’ve clocked him at 30 seconds - longest time playing with any sort toy. Unless you count catnip. He loves that stuff.
Bob, my dog, has his little red rubber biscuit. I’m not sure how else to describe it. It’s this oblong piece of rubber with little studs on the outside and hole on the bottom in which one is supposed to insert this chewy-gnawy thingie, but that doesn’t factor in. His biscuit is *the *backyard item. He is laser focused when I have it in my hand. Wait, sit, lay down, stay, come … bang-bang-bang, no hesitation. I’m pretty sure I could train him to wax my car if I give it enough work when I have this thing in my hand. He will chase it for hours in the back yard.
Of course, he’s not too keen on giving back to me. “Drop it” is my next goal.
Cockatiel Maggie has an arrangement of little bells and pink and yellow plastic beads hanging off the ceiling of the cage that she just dotes on–sometimes she is ferocious with it, shaking and worrying it so it jingles and rattles cacaphonously, other times just clutching it in one claw. It’s a hoot watching her work out on those beads.
Half-Note (Budgie Numero Uno) likes his little round mirror with a sort of crank-handle he can twirl it around with and some beads in it to make it rattle, while Angus (Budgie the Younger) favors a set of plastic rings with a bell at one end. Sometimes he just swings it back and forth to ding the bell, but he usually plays more athletically–jumping on it and swinging, climbing, or “threading” himself through the rings like a shoelace.
It’s sort of enviable, really, how much fun they can have with such simple little objects.
Our Sadie (pit bull / hound mix) had one toy she loved above all others, a hollow rubber football about 8 inches long. She carried it on walks and played fetch without. Even though it wasn’t very tough, it lasted a long time despite the fact that she was a formidable chewer who destroyed other toys quickly. Eventually we replaced it, and she loved the new one, but we never found another to replace that one.
She was a rescue, and came to us just after raising a litter of puppies. When she was finished heartworm treatment, we had her spayed. Sometimes that throws their hormones out of whack, and she went into a false pregnancy. She collected all the toys in her bed and laid with them touching her belly like they were nursing.
My kittens are five months old. Their favorite “toy” by far is a retractable pointer that one of my parents owned for reasons unknown. I drag the point along the floor and they chase it like mad men.
Other than that, it changes a lot. This week their favorite real cat toy is the plush egg rattles from last month’s KitNip box. They enjoy carrying one around in their mouths, wrestling it away from each other, and then the other one takes a turn carrying it - there are 2 eggs but this is more fun than each playing with one. Kittens.
They should be interested in catnip, if they’re going to be, very soon so we shall see how that affects toys’ favored status.
The Border Collie cares not for toys, except as a tool to get Auxiliary Dog to play tug-o’-war. AD has a plush penguin collection; she’s a Golden Retriever mix, so I guess that makes sense, especially if you add in the additional plush ducks. She carries them around like they’re her babbies. Or trophies.
The pineapples are popular, too.
Yup, she did exactly the same thing this year.
Moki, my 2 year old tortie, has lots of real cat toys, but she brings for me to throw twist ties, foam ear plugs, pieces of guitar string, etc. Sometimes I’ll find these treasures in her food dispenser.
Huck, the Great Dane loves anything that can be used as a tug toy. He lives for tug-of-war.
Zebediah, the German Shepherd is all about rawhide chews and anything else he can chew up.
Rigatoni, the boxer loves irritating his brothers…continually.
Kizzy currently is in love with her Jolly Ball, a horse toy that the horses wanted no part of. Our new pup Simi carries around a stuffed fish taco.
Bernie the Bernese Mountain Dog had a lot of toys but, with one exception, nothing stood out as a special favourite. The one exception was a tug-of-war toy that consisted of a knobby plastic cylinder that squeaked when it was squeezed and had a rope with a handle hanging off one end of it. He just adored that toy, and always knew where it was, even when I didn’t.
Back in the old house I had a good friend who’d come over often and loved to play with Bernie. As soon as Bernie saw him he’d run over and jump on him in delighted greeting. And then he’d suddenly disappear into the back of the house, and seconds later appear again with his squeaky toy, running as fast as he could and squeaking up a storm! Always that one toy.
Did-a-chik?
Dum-a-chum?
My cat uses his Turbo Scratcher daily. Circular with a ball in a track, the center is a round cardboard scratch pad. He cannot resist any interactive toy, a Cat Dancer (spring steel wire with a couple of small cardboard cylinders), laser pointer, squeaky mouse on string attached to stick, coat hanger “stick” with crumpled paper at one end, etc… Balls of all sizes and materials about the house, he might bat one around every couple of days. He does not care one iota for boxes, they are just in his way. He is the Supreme Bag Licker. He loves to lick plastic shopping bags, wrappers, packing material and as an extra bonus said bag licking irritates his human.
1990 Jeep Cherokee. They ride it about every day out in the desert, delivering them to their second favorite toys: The Tiny Creatures That Dwell There