Games to Play with Your Cat

Our cat loves to play games. The problem is that there is a definite communication gap between cats and people. Cat sign language is subtle and only learned through constant learning on both the part of both the cat and the people. The development of games is a slow process. But the benefits are great. The cat enjoys the interaction and both the cat and the people involved usually get a little exercise.

We have purchased toys for our cat and she enjoys playing with the toy for a day or two. After a day or two the cat ignores the toys she has unless engaged in play with either my husband or me. There have been infrequent sightings of the cat playing with the toys on her own later but they are indeed infrequent.

I'm not sure who initiates the cat games, makes the rules, or even if the cat teaches the people to play or if the people teach the cat. In any case there are several cat games that we have discovered that seem to be constant activities. I will describe several games that we share with our cat.

Toss the Toy

Toss the toy is the easiest game we play. We have purchased many many cat toys that include soft balls, balls made of a crinkly material, various small animals and strange shapes with feathers. We usually end up tossing the toys into the air towards the cat and she either swats them with her paw or grabs the toy with her paw and begins to bite and scratch the toy. If she swats the toy we usually end up tossing more toys until she finally either plays with one on her own or just stops playing.

Catch

The best game of catch is played with a soft ball that we toss towards the cat. She is very good at swatting the ball which actually begins to be returned to the person tossing the ball. If we bounce the ball towards her she will jump into the air and again swat the ball back towards us. She can "catch" or swat the ball on the run, while on a chair or on the floor. It is one of her favorite games.

The Door Game

The door game is, I think, a game that many cats play with their people. When the cat is behind a door she will peek through the crack between the door and the wall. We tap our fingers slowly across the door towards the crack and then allow our fingers to be sighted through the crack. The cat immediately tries to grab our fingers with her paw. We do this over and over, tapping our fingers toward the door crack and allowing her to pat our fingers. Occasionally we lightly grab her paw and then quickly let go. This game usually lasts until we get tired.

Shadows on the Floor (on the ceiling, wall or any other place)

Every late afternoon the sun begins to peek through our living room window and casts a thin beam onto the floor. We use either our hands or feet to create shadows that the cat loves to chase. The cat waits by the spot where the light beam appears every afternoon anticipating the shadow game. The same game can be played with a light instead of a shadow. By shinning the light from a flashlight on the floor you can engage the cat in a great exercise period. The cat will chase the light across the floor until she becomes exhausted.

Mousy

When we brought our cat home from the rescue shelter we had a small white toy mouse waiting for her. The mouse has remained her favorite toy. Unfortunately she brings this mouse to me in the middle of the night wanting to play. I do not play at this time however she continues to carry to mouse into our bedroom almost every night. She places the mouse on the floor beside the bed on the floor, somewhere on the floor between the bed and the bathroom door or on the floor going out of the bedroom. We do include mousy in the toss the toy game, sometimes just use the mouse to dangle over her head for her to grab or to place in a place that we know the cat will find it as she does with us.

Other games we play with the cat are plain old hide and seek and a sort of tag. Cats love to play games with their people. I'm sure we will be learning even more cat games.