Playing with your Maine Coon Cats

Hello All:

How much playing do you do with your Maine Coon's? They played a lot when they were little, but now is it difficult to keep them interested in playing for more than 5 minutes. Sometimes I can only get one of them to play, usually Maya and Maxwell will watch. They really only like string toys and some catnip toys but seem bored with everything. I just bought the Panic Mouse 360 and they are really not all that impressed with it. How does everyone keep their cats stimulated?

Thanks, Carole

Hiya,
Mine don't play with their toys anymore either, they do keep each other amused chasing around and play fighting though, although my male is even stopping that since being neutered! lol

Darcie-lu is 3yrs & still plays regularly with her two stuffed chickens. a selection of squeaky suede mice in various colours(she seems to like the change), her kitten softballs, but mainly, she adores her "pinks"- 6 inch pieces of pale pink marabou, oh, and the rug in the conservatory gets a regular slide around. Apart from that, she spends a lot of time chasing moths in the garden & annoying the fish.
Its a hard life being a cat isnt it

I feel a bit guilty that I don't play with my clan enough - although they have each other and their secret games that I don't always understand :smile:.

I can highly recommend Great deals on cat toys at zooplus: Cat Dangler Pole Bird with Genuine Feathers which I believe is similar to a toy called Da Bird. If I have this toy out - I get bored long before they do and I have to hide it until the next time!

I bought several so as to have a few in reserve :LOL:

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 :LOL:

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!