Thread: Playing with your Maine Coon Cats

I do have Da Bird and they used to be happy with that one, but no longer. Truthfully, I feel they are bored by their toys even thought I rotate them. I am thinking of buying harnesses and trying to walk them.

Put some ornaments out - they'll soon start playing with the things they're not supposed to!! We bought some new candles in holders a few weeks ago - all 3 watched us unwrap them all, put them in the holders and 'hide' them under the fireplace. Left them alone for 5 minutes and when we came back into the room, all the holders and candles were all around the floor!! Kept them amused for a few days....then back to jumping at raindrops as they run down the windows in this lovely summer weather we're having....

The MC is a very intelligent creature and gets easily bored with the same old toys all the time. Have a variety of toys and offer them in rotation. They don't have to be expensive, in fact the cheaper the better.

You might find they don't want to be offered toys at all, they want to 'find' their own toys. They want to feel that the game is their idea and they've initiated it. I could offer Larry the piece of plastic off the milk carton and he's not interested. But if he pinches it out of the bin all by himself, then it's the best toy ever.

Get some cardboard boxes and place them around the room like a cardboard city. Pretend to drop a couple of toys or bits of crinkly litter. I'd be surprised if that doesn't get them going.

Whiskey is obsessed with plastic springs & nylon straws that are made for cats. He has 10 of each and has lost most of them. We can't find them anywhere in the house. So we've bought more for him to lose. Whiskey will play for hours with his springs & straws. He also plays hard with his Da-Bird. He will jump all over the place for a good 5-10 minutes attacking the bird flying around. I wear out before he does. We have many replacement feathers to attach once the others wear out.

I've come to the conclusion that they don't lose them - they 'hide' them. I'm sure ours have got a stash of toy mice somewhere. I've often thought they've lost something then weeks later they appear with it again as if they've know where it was all along....! Very clever

My two love playing the newspaper game. We simply use a stick under some opened newspaper and they follow it and pounce for hours. The house looks like a bomb site afterwards with all the shredded paper, but there are two very contended felines as well!

Have you tried a laser pen. You can sit on the sofa and watch TV and as long as the little light keeps moving, they are happy. I even tease mine by pointing it to the ceiling and watch as they try to work out how to get at it. Decent ones are about £4.50 from Amazon.

My two boys don't really play much now -- although like other posts they do play with each other. One thing I have done though is to get rid of the food bowls -- all dry food is now served in a variety of 'games' -- I have a ball,a tower so they have to push it down, we have an activitiy board, which is really good -- and a twirling thing -- that is very advanced and only one of them can do that. What this has done is make them work for food -- there fore think --- also it has slowed the greedy one down and the picky eater-- who is cleverer has more of a chance

Mine have old boxes with crinkled up newspaper and cat nip sprinkled over, they love this. we have two large cat scratchers upstairs and downstairs they chase each other around the house like mad things. They love pheasant feathers and will run around with them in their mouths.

Ours rarely play with their 'expensive' toys (i.e. anything that cost more than £2 for example)
the laser light gets their attention every time, as does rolling up a bit of foil or sweetie wrapper,
the rest they ignore, I instigate play every day even if just for 5 minutes, but only one will play at a time, they won't go for the same foil ball, whoever gets there first, the other will just watch, they play chase together though