Yes, cat toy fatigue is a thing! No matter how much your cat enjoys a toy when it’s new, the novelty is bound to wear off after a while. So you get another toy…and another…and before you know it, you have a house full of cat toys and a bored cat.
There are several reasons this happens (and don’t worry, there are easy, simple fixes, which I’ll get into in a moment).
Reasons cats get bored of their toys:
- Overexposure. There’s even a real term for that: Neophilia. That’s why your cat ignores once favorite toys that have been sitting around for weeks.
- Its scent is gone. Most catnip and silver vine toys lose their appealing, intoxicating scent after a period of time (although some catnip strains are surprisingly resilient!). And once that happens, the cat no longer has a reason to play with it.
- You stopped using it as playtime with them. It happens more than you’d think — the human uses a toy to play with a cat, and then expects them to continue playing with it on their own. But maybe, the most fun part of the toy (you), isn’t there, so the toy is no longer interesting.
- The toy isn’t prey like. If a toy doesn’t imitate the movements of a real critter, then it’s not fun for a cat. Cats prefer playtime that mimics hunting. And if it just sits there, or if its feel or appearance doesn’t resemble prey in some form, it might not spark their interest.
The good news is that all these cat toy problems are easily solved — without buying new cat toys or spending more money. I’ve already covered a couple of them in this post. And I have several more suggestions below. The first one is perhaps the easiest.
How to give new life to old cat toys
- Put those toys away!
When your cat sees these toys sitting around for weeks on end, no wonder they are bored of them. So pick them all up except a couple of their current favorites. Put the rest in a bag or basket, and hide them away somewhere where your cat won’t see them. Then every few weeks, gather up the ones that have been sitting out, and bring out a couple of new ones. Rotating cat toys keeps them fresh and novel.
- “Marinate” the old toys. If the catnip toys aren’t as fragrant anymore, put them in a jar or baggie with some fresh catnip for a few days to a couple of weeks. (Pro tip: rubbing the nip between your fingers or hands helps to release the scent even more.) That will give them new life. In fact, any soft cat toy, even if they didn’t originally have catnip, will benefit from this.
- Think like prey. If you were being hunted, wouldn’t you try to hide? So take those old toys and put them in a paper bag or a box with some packing paper so your cat can hunt for them. Hide them behind a pillow, or under the corner of a rug, with just a tiny section peeking out. Let your cat think they are smarter than their prey!
- If you’ve slacked off on playing with your cat, get back to it! And be creative. Remember what I said about thinking like prey. If you could make the toy move under a bedsheet or play peekaboo with a decorative pillow, I bet your cat would think that was fun! Look around your house and think of new ways you can create fun hunting scenarios with your cat’s old toys.
These are all super easy tips, and you are probably surprised you haven’t thought about them. But with daily routines, people sometimes forget about the fun things that make life with cats so enriching and worthwhile. So save this list and come back to it every so often as a reminder that a little novelty can go a long way with cats. And even with people.
