How To Play With a Cat? (Step-by-Step Guide)

Daily exercise is essential for cats because they are natural-born predators who must express their hunting instinct.

An understimulated cat may wreak havoc in the home, running around, crashing into furniture, and attacking the owner’s hands and feet.

To make your cat happy, provide it with sufficient environmental enrichment and dedicate time for quality play.

The Best Toy Types

Learning about cat toy types can help you pick the best option for your pet. Cat toy manufacturers constantly come up with new ideas for entertaining our furry friends, but generally, toys can be categorized into several groups.

Hiding places like cat tunnels, ripple rugs, and cardboard boxes are favored by many cats. Tunnels and boxes may not be sufficient for independent play, but cats love to hide in them while playing with other cats or wand toys.

The best toys for kitten teething are chewy plush toys that help relieve itchiness and pain and prevent kittens from biting cords and the owner’s hands.

Furthermore, tunnels and cardboard boxes provide cats with a safe place to calm down when they become overwhelmed.

Puzzle cat toys combine challenge with play, requiring the cat to put in the effort to get treats or another type of reward.

Toys to chase, like mice and balls, are one of the most popular cat toy types. Such toys may be motorized. Perhaps, the only cat toy type more common than chasing toys are wands and teasers.

Wand toys and laser pointers are useless for independent play but provide the owner an opportunity to spend quality time with their four-legged friend.

If you don’t have time to play with your cat, ensure it has toys suitable for independent play.

Ball track toys are an excellent option for busy cat parents. An ordinary ball may not be entertaining enough for an adult cat, but ball track toys work as puzzles that require a cat to find unconventional solutions.

Cats that have a habit of running around the house and crashing into everything on their way will appreciate an exercise wheel. Lastly, some cat toys are infused with catnip to boost a cat’s hunting instinct.

Try Out Different Toys

Some owners give their pets a single ball or plush mouse and assume their cat doesn’t want to play because it shows no interest in the toy. However, each cat is different and has unique preferences when it comes to toys.

Try out different toy types and see which toys your cat likes the most. Apart from experimenting with toy types, you can try playing at different speeds or at different times of the day.

Cat toys don’t have to be expensive, after all. If your cat doesn’t find a fancy catnip-infused mouse or ball track toy amusing, it may appreciate an ordinary cardboard box or a piece of paper tied to a thread.

Stimulate Your Cat’s Instincts

Cats are natural-born predators, and playing helps them express their hunting instincts. Felines love to stalk, chase, and attack. They aren’t interested in static toys, so you should make the toys move to entice your cat to play.

Don’t expect your cat to bring you a ball in its mouth asking you to play fetch as dogs do. Encourage your cat to play by throwing the toy at it, making the ball roll, or ringing a bell in a chew toy.

Catnip is known for its sedative effect on felines, but only if it’s ingested. Catnip-infused toys have the opposite effect, activating a cat’s hunting instincts and making it more active.

Note that catnip doesn’t have the same effect on all felines. Kittens and senior cats tend to be less susceptible to its effects, and some cats are tolerant to it entirely.

Don’t use catnip too often – about once a week is enough. Otherwise, your cat will develop tolerance to the herb. Offer a lot of environmental enrichment to your cat – think scratch posts, cat trees, and toys hidden around the house.

Cats appreciate variety and novelty and may become bored if they only have a few toys and a single scratch post. Ensure that your cat has enough places to climb and hide.

Don’t Use Your Hands

The most common mistake in playing with a cat is using bare hands or feet. This mistake is prevalent with kittens who don’t yet bite hard, and owners find their nibbling cute.

Unfortunately, allowing a kitten to play with the owner’s hands turns into an annoying habit in adult age.

By teasingly tickling a kitten’s belly with fingers or mimicking a mouse with a hand, the owner teaches the kitten to perceive hands as a hunting target.

A cat that used to play with bare hands at a young age may struggle to understand why it’s not allowed anymore at an adult age.

So, even if a kitten’s bites and scratches don’t hurt, never allow it to play with your hands. If your kitten has already got into the habit of playing with your feet or hands, you will need to put in the effort to discipline it.

Whenever your kitten attacks your hand or foot, push it towards the kitten rather than away from it. This way, you will confuse the kitten because the prey never moves towards the predator.

Then, stop the play and ignore your kitten for a while to show it that such behavior is discouraged. Ensure that your response is consistent and teach everyone in the household to react the same.

Additionally, reward your kitten every time it plays with legal targets. Whenever your kitten chooses a ball or mouse over your hands, give it a treat or pet it.

Mimic Prey Movements

Learn how to mimic prey movements when playing with a cat to boost your pet’s hunting instinct. If you’re playing with a wand toy, try to mimic a bird. Flutter and wiggle the feathers in the air above your cat.

Occasionally, land on surfaces but soar in the air as soon as your cat attempts to catch the toy. After your cat catches the “bird,” wiggle it gently.

If you want to mimic a mouse, keep the toy on the ground because mice don’t fly. Mix slow movements with rapid ones. You can stop sometimes or play “hide and peek,” moving the toy behind objects.

Don’t move the toy towards your cat because it may confuse it and even scare it. Mice and birds in nature don’t go in a predator’s paws themselves.

Know How Long To Play

There’s no universal answer for how long to play with a cat. Depending on a particular cat’s breed, age, and personality, it may need 15 minutes to over an hour of exercise daily.

When playing, monitor your cat’s behavior for signs of aggression. When a cat becomes overwhelmed during play, it may start attacking the owner instead of the toy, so you should know when to stop playing with a cat.

Learn to read your cat’s tail language – if it thrashes the tail rapidly from one side to another, the play session is coming to an end. Dilated pupils, pressed-back ears, and overall tense posture also signal play aggression in cats.

If your cat starts hissing or growling, stop the play and calmly withdraw the toy from your cat. Don’t touch your cat – let it wind off on its own.

Don’t try to take your cat and bring it to another room because it may bite you. Don’t pull the toy away too rapidly, and don’t show any big reaction like jumping or screaming because your cat may perceive it as a counterattack.

Ensure Your Cat Can Play Alone

Most cat owners are busy and can’t dedicate enough time to playing with their pets. If you aren’t home 24/7, ensure that your cat has toys suitable for independent play to let it drain its energy whenever it needs.

Chew toys and wand toys require the owner’s effort to entice a cat to play. Since they are static and don’t resemble prey, cats don’t typically find them entertaining.

In contrast, balls, motorized mice, ball track toys, puzzles, and toys on springs allow the cat to play on its own.

Why Doesn’t My Cat Want To Play?

The reasons why a cat doesn’t want to play are numerous. Some cats are naturally lazy and need to be forced to move. Senior cats gradually lose interest in hunting, and many older felines suffer from arthritis or obesity that hinders their movement.

Every cat’s activity level is different. There’s no need to worry if a cat was never interested in toys. Losing interest in play is also typical in stressful situations.

But if a cat is reluctant to play for no apparent reason and used to be active before, it may be suffering from a medical condition. Take a note of any other abnormalities in your cat’s behavior and bring it to a vet for a check-up.

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