Best Toys For Indoor Cats

It may be silly to write about the best cat toys because the pet store and the internet are littered with cat toys. But that’s precisely why I saw the value in writing this post. I don’t know how much I spent on cat toys, but trust me when I say, a lot.

What makes the situation worse is that my cats have no interest in them most of the time. When I excitedly take the new cat toy out of its case, my cats both stare at me unamused with their front legs folded and tucked under them as I wave the toy in their face like I’m the only one having fun.

Nala & Charlie’s Cat Toy Graveyard

You can try different toys and heck, I’m guilty of still buying them new toys, because don’t we all just want to please our cats? But, I’m telling you, there are certain toys that most cats universally seem to love playing with. And they’re not expensive!

Nala has her favorites – the Cat Dancer and the Da Bird feather wand. She also gets enticed to play when I stick the feather under the sofa or the carpet and wiggle it around. Something about her “prey” hiding makes it more intriguing for her.

Charlie’s favorites are – the laser pointer and playing half a fetch with a sponge ball.

Once you’ve figured out what your cats like, it’s best to keep them in your repertoire and re-order when they become tattered.

One reason why I’m writing this post with this list is so I can remind myself which toys to re-order if some of them go missing as they inevitably do.

So, without further ado, here’s the list of Nala & Charlie’s all-time favorite toys.

Best Cat Toys

Since it can be daunting as to which toys to get your cat, below is a collection of Nala & Charlie’s favorite toys that trump all new toys that I’ve gotten them thereafter.

1. Best Flying Toy

There are so many different brands of wand with feather at the end, and trust me, I’ve bought a ton of them. But for some reason, the way that the feather of this particular wand weaves in and out through air makes Charlie and Nala totally engrossed.

The feather has a plastic component and a feathery component and as it flies in the air, it makes a flapping sound like a bird’s wings.

For that reason, I HIGHLY recommend you try the Original Go Cat Da Bird available on Amazon.com. You can buy the refill feathers because the feather will look like a naked spine after your cats have had a go at it.

2. Best Crawling Toy

As I indicated in many of my posts, you have to understand what kind of hunter your cat is. Does he/she like chasing prey that fly or prey that crawls?

This one is one of the most puzzling toys to me, because this toy is nothing but a piece of wire with rolled up cardboard at the end. Honestly, that’s it. And it costs a mere couple of bucks. But Nala absolutely goes crazy over this.

I drag the end of the cardboard back and forth on the floor and she runs for her dear life to chase this piece of cardboard.

Even more strange is how when the cardboard at the end of the wire gets “worn out,” Nala doesn’t chase it anymore but then you use a new cat dancer, she she chases it again. How does she know?!

So, I do have to replace it every few months, but the good thing is it’s only a couple of bucks so I just add it to my order of toilet paper or detergent or something.

As a crawling toy, I DEFINITELY recommend the Cat Dancer available on Amazon.com.

Here’s a review video that Nala & Charlie did of the Cat Dancer over on our Youtube:

3. Best Laser Pointer

Nala isn’t very interested in laser pointers but Charlie goes nuts! Make sure not to point it in their eyes. I bought one from the pet store, one from Target in the past, but the red laser all became very faint over time even after replacing the battery. So I bought this industrial strength looking laser pointer on Amazon.com and it works awesome.

4. Best Ball to Play Fetch

When I say “fetch”, it’s not entirely accurate because my cats don’t bring it back to me. I throw the ball from one side of the apartment to the other and my cats run to where it is.

Then I walk over there and throw it back to the other side of the apartment and they run to it. So this involves a bit of exercise on your part.

As a ball to play fetch with, I recommend this set of sponge balls that Charlie loves.

5. Best Tunnel Tube

Another household favorite is the tube. They love using it as a hiding place or run through it when they’re possessed by some unknown energy. I recommend this orange tube that comes in a pack of 2 available on Amazon.com, which is less obtrusive than some other tubes that take up the whole living room.

6. Best Remote Control Toy

This one will definitely pique your cat’s interest in the beginning.

For those who want to sit on the couch and interact with your cat, I recommend the remote control mouse toy available on Amazon.com.

7. Best Scratching Post

In addition to a vertical scratching post, this grooved one that you place on the floor is a household favorite with both my cats and I have to replace it every so often because they use the heck of it.

I recommend this grooved floor scratching post available on Amazon.com.

8. Catnip Toy

You can find a ton of catnip toys. I want to mention on here, because replacing the toy with fresh catnip gets your cat interested in these toys again. I also wet it a little bit to activate the smell of the catnip a little more.

You can buy any catnip toys like this 3 little mice for a couple of bucks and then you’ll have to do a little seamstress dissecting to fill up the cat’s innards with new catnip every so often with 100% natural catnip like this bottle.

9. Best Automatic Bug Toys

These little electric crawley Hexbug nano toys are pretty cool. What I did was I taped a little fence on the floor, put the cat and the hexbug inside the ring and watched my cat watch the bug and try to attack it.

This was an effective automatic toy for about 30 minutes. They played with it but then the nano bugs got out of the fence when one of my cats smacked it out of the fence.

As a solution, I tied a string to the bug so that if it went rogue, I could pull it back with the string. It was a fun toy for the cats to play with for a little bit, but don’t expect this to be a household favorite for years to come.