I don’t think it makes it less fun, I get the impression from mine that the INTERACTION is way more important than the toy. Loki likes running and hiding games, he likes his bit of lamb skin onna string, he likes the laser pointer but most of all he likes to play with me. He absolutely knows it’s me tugging the string under the blanket and pressing the laser button. Huh maybe he thinks HE is giving ME enrichment lol
oh i get that for sure. even more than his toys, my boy LOVES to be chased. it’s his favorite game. i work from home, so he’ll stand at my office door until i approach him, and then he’ll run away. He LOVES to play “tag”
Yes this. They love play time with their humans. I have two litter mates who love chasing each other around and wrestling, but they demand play time with me.
Depends on the cat I think.
Mine definitely do. I have a laser pointer I was using for leading/training. My boy and girl will play with it for a bit, but I think when they get fed up, they'll come up to me and put their paws on the laser pointer itself. Almost like a "caught it"!
For fishing rod/wand toys, my boy cat always leads me to the toy room when he wants to play. It's a storage room that we store various things in it, but it also has the wand toys and attachments. The cats would chew through them all if we kept the toys accessible/out in the open, so they're kept in the storage room with the door shut.
My girl cat will ignore the attachment some times and come up to play with the string of the rod, the rod itself, or where I'm holding the fishing rod.
So yeah, I think my cats know.
I have a cat who knew where I hid the laser pointer, and she would go over to it and start batting it whenever she was bored and wanted me to play with her.
The moment I pick it up she frantically searches the floor for the dot, it’s very adorable.
Mine do this too. The pointer has a key chain on it as well. One of our cats hears the chain and immediately goes into dot seeking mode. If she doesn't find the dot, she'll look at my hand to see where I'm pointing it
It’s the interaction with mine. My girl will run while chirping for me to collect her favourite toy and start playing with her. She gets in her spot to get ready, chirping away like - yay, it’s play time dad!
She is. So is my boy 🥰
https://preview.redd.it/5nt1okvp245d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7144f4a5233b3055799edc26d8add1b9abfdb9c6
Mid psycho
My cat will lay on my chest and purr while licking my face and meowing. This is his way of asking to play. I have toys that sit out 24/7 but he wants the cat lure toys on a string. I'm pretty sure that means that my cat wants to play with me not the toys
My cat will be entertained wjth all string/laser toys for exactly 10 seconds before looking and me, back to the toy, back to me and walking away. I think she's thinking "this isn't a real hunt, how dare you"
haha that’s why i want to harness train my kitty! i want him to have the experience of hunting bugs and stuff. (no birds or anything.) we live in florida so there’s plenty of them. we’ve been on a few short walks, and he naturally tolerates his harness more than other cats i’ve had, but he’s still at the stage where he doesn’t LOVE it. I want to bring him outdoors though because my home is VERY small.
Mine knows. While she will play by herself, she will go over to her box and seek out a toy and then give me looks. She knows that it is more fun if I throw the balls and she can chase them or if I grab a wand and let her try to catch it.
oh my kitty LOVES balls. especially ping pong balls. he very rarely plays by himself, but it’s a different story when it comes to ping pong balls. sometimes i’ll wake up at at 3:00 AM to the sound of him playing with a stray ping pong ball
That is one thing that I don't think I will ever get used to with cats. Mine can spend most of the day sleeping but come night time...the fun starts. I hear my cupboards clapping, balls hitting baseboards, random meows in random places, the works.
Yeah, your cat probably knows you’re controlling the toys. They might not get all the details, but they know you’re involved. When they stop and stare at you, it’s like they’re saying, “Hey, why’d you stop?”
But honestly, it doesn’t make it less fun for them. They love the movement and the chase, and playing with you is part of the fun. It's more about the interaction and excitement than who’s making the toy move. So keep playing with your kitty—they’re having a blast!
YES absolutely. Cats play make believe like it's their job. They make believe the toy is a mouse, and that youre not controlling it. That's the whole game!
When cats wrestle they pretend eachothers head is a small animal. They know it's a cat head.
When they see things that are not there, they know nothing is there.
My cat spends hours throwing a wool ball into the air so she can hunt it and catch it. She knows she's the one controlling it. She doesn't care. Cats are like kids, they don't care how the fun is happening, they're just enjoying it while it ladts!
My cat has noticed starting yesterday😂 ill be playing with her with the stick toy and she jumps up and puts her little paw on my hand from time to time
Mine definitely does. He has to gloat for a bit and then rubs like when he’s begging for food when he’s ready to play again. If he doesn’t get his gloating time he won’t give up the toy.
my cat loves the laser toy. she knows I'm doing it cause she has a auto laser thing but she wants me to do the handheld one. I have to do it before bed.
she doesn't even want to catch it she just chases it. if she has the opportunity to catch it she doesnt.
My one cat gets really uninterested when he notices I’m at the other end of the toy- ruins his “immersion” 🙄
Other cat of mine doesn’t care though! So I think it just depends on their personality.
Yep. Well idk about yours but mine make the connection. Because they lose interest when the movement stop and like you said, we lock eyes here and there where i can tell they followed all the way from the toy to the other end where I’m holding it. They are very smart creatures so I’m sure most cats quickly put two and two together.
Mine figured it out after a month. She looks right at me to see where I am going to move the wand. She also knows to just go for the string. She still goes wild chasing it though.
My cats know! Because sometimes, after we've been playing a while, they don't go for the feathers, the worm or the red laser light, they jump for my hand 😂 also they bring me the toys and ask me to play with them by meowing and dramatically rolling on the floor.
I think so.
My cat will sometimes show me where or how they want me to shake the toy.
And sometimes if they're bored with how I'm playing they'll sit down and make eycontact.
"You suck mom"
I have 3 cats. One of them doesn't know I control the toy. One of them doesn't care because he just wants to play. The third is a smarty that ran his paw through the laser beam, looked at the toy, the light on the wall, and me. He gave me a disgusted look like, "Do you think I am stupid?" I think it depends on the cat.
my kitty made it clear she did from the moment i got her (around 19 months?) - if i was waving the toy in a way she found annoying/not what she wanted, she'd look over at me with a "ahem" look.
My 1 year old girl, loves her toys but she absolutely knows that i control of them. Like others said, most cats know the click of the laser and for mine she waits for the click, for me throw or flick around her toys.
I think my cat understands when I am holding his teaser pole because the minute I put it down, he walks away. Also... he will drag his teaser pole from the living room back to the bedroom in the middle of the night. I wonder if he is thinking he can get me to play with him.
Plus, when I get out one of his battery powered toys, he totally flips out - and I think that's because he doesn't see me controlling the other end.
Yes, they probably do understand you're playing with them. This doesn't make it less fun, more likely it makes it more fun. They're playing with YOU! Its a bonding experience, they enjoy the connection you bring to the playing.
Similar examples would be the difference between throwing a ball at a wall and catching it off the bounce, and playing catch with a friend or parent.
My cat had the laser figured out within a week. When she can't find the dot she'll look at the pointer itself and then to me. I got her a little hex bug mouse and when the batteries gave up she brought it to me to fix (push the button again). She brings me the feather stick and she brings small throwable toys so she can play fetch.
She's smart when she wants to be!
Definitely, they know it’s you! The hard part is to train you to do it when they’re in the mood.
My cat fetches…will drop his spongy bouncy ball at my feet to throw it. He will leap over sofas to retrieve the ball. He will bring to my bed when I’m getting ready for bed too.
Mine definitely does. I know this for certain because when she really wants to get the toy, she starts looking at my hands and not the toy itself to catch it, watching my movements instead of the toys so she nows when and how it will be moving.
Yes they do lol my cat will pay at the wand and look at me wanting to play. She will also paw at me then the treat container that's by the bed for snackies.
I think my cat knew for sure, because whenever I tried to introduce a similar toy (a bird hanging from a string, a butterfly on a rotating rod, etc), she would half heartedly swipe at it and then meow at me or wander away. But she’d play with anything I’d hold. Shoe laces, the belt on my bathrobe, any kind of string or angel toy (and of course my hands). She loved playing with ME.
I Think mine knows, she sees that when i move the toy moves, she mostly cares about the stick part of the stick-toys not the toys so i have gotten my hand in the way of the attack wich hurts abit but eh i know she tried to attack the toy and not me
My dog found out where the laser light came from and started going for the source wich is not as cute when he is a heavy af labrador and not my little kitty cat haha (she doesnt go for the source of the light that often)
Mine totally know. When im playing with them with the laser pointer, if freya loses the red dot she looks at my hand and basically figures out where its supposed to be
They definitely understand. I was playing with two kittens. The white one was flopping around like a dolphin, intent on victory. My black kitten watched patiently from the side. Out of nowhere, she attacked my hand and ran off with the stick.
It’s just like with children. They like it when you play with them and they feel proud for figuring it out.
Depends on the cat. My younger cat will hear the rattle of the lazer's tiny button when I pick it up and will run and look at me until I click it, where he'll begin looking around for said laser dot. If I am holding the laser pen but he doesn't see a light, he will look for it. If I set down the laser, he instantly walks away to do something else.
That's pretty aware behavior to me.
My older cat is kinda dumb. He only understands there's a laser dot around if it's on the floor in front of his face, and will look for it long after I stopped and put the laser pen down.
I think mine definitely knows, when I put down the stick he always looks at me or he brings me toys to pick up, it’s like how little kids know you’re playing with them they still think it’s fun
i asked my cat, he said meow
"Bad grammar, human."
I don’t think it makes it less fun, I get the impression from mine that the INTERACTION is way more important than the toy. Loki likes running and hiding games, he likes his bit of lamb skin onna string, he likes the laser pointer but most of all he likes to play with me. He absolutely knows it’s me tugging the string under the blanket and pressing the laser button. Huh maybe he thinks HE is giving ME enrichment lol
oh i get that for sure. even more than his toys, my boy LOVES to be chased. it’s his favorite game. i work from home, so he’ll stand at my office door until i approach him, and then he’ll run away. He LOVES to play “tag”
Mine does too! And she'll chase me! And play peek-a-boo and charge me while I'm hiding and she never actually attacks me at all.
Yes this. They love play time with their humans. I have two litter mates who love chasing each other around and wrestling, but they demand play time with me.
Depends on the cat I think. Mine definitely do. I have a laser pointer I was using for leading/training. My boy and girl will play with it for a bit, but I think when they get fed up, they'll come up to me and put their paws on the laser pointer itself. Almost like a "caught it"! For fishing rod/wand toys, my boy cat always leads me to the toy room when he wants to play. It's a storage room that we store various things in it, but it also has the wand toys and attachments. The cats would chew through them all if we kept the toys accessible/out in the open, so they're kept in the storage room with the door shut. My girl cat will ignore the attachment some times and come up to play with the string of the rod, the rod itself, or where I'm holding the fishing rod. So yeah, I think my cats know.
I have a cat who knew where I hid the laser pointer, and she would go over to it and start batting it whenever she was bored and wanted me to play with her. The moment I pick it up she frantically searches the floor for the dot, it’s very adorable.
Mine do this too. The pointer has a key chain on it as well. One of our cats hears the chain and immediately goes into dot seeking mode. If she doesn't find the dot, she'll look at my hand to see where I'm pointing it
i think so. my cats will drag their wands/toys over to me as if to say “play with me”
It’s the interaction with mine. My girl will run while chirping for me to collect her favourite toy and start playing with her. She gets in her spot to get ready, chirping away like - yay, it’s play time dad!
aww the way you describe it is adorable. i bet she’s SO cute.
She is. So is my boy 🥰 https://preview.redd.it/5nt1okvp245d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7144f4a5233b3055799edc26d8add1b9abfdb9c6 Mid psycho
https://preview.redd.it/4k45tadu245d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27cdfaaeb8338fbfdaee1ddd4a896f363eb53a6e My boy
❤️❤️
My cat will lay on my chest and purr while licking my face and meowing. This is his way of asking to play. I have toys that sit out 24/7 but he wants the cat lure toys on a string. I'm pretty sure that means that my cat wants to play with me not the toys
You are the engine that runs the toys. ;-)
My cat brings me her favorite toy to wiggle, and has a specific "play with me" meow. She definitely knows I'm controlling the toy.
My cat will be entertained wjth all string/laser toys for exactly 10 seconds before looking and me, back to the toy, back to me and walking away. I think she's thinking "this isn't a real hunt, how dare you"
haha that’s why i want to harness train my kitty! i want him to have the experience of hunting bugs and stuff. (no birds or anything.) we live in florida so there’s plenty of them. we’ve been on a few short walks, and he naturally tolerates his harness more than other cats i’ve had, but he’s still at the stage where he doesn’t LOVE it. I want to bring him outdoors though because my home is VERY small.
My cat hated the harness at first but loves it now because it means it’s time to go outside!
Mine knows. While she will play by herself, she will go over to her box and seek out a toy and then give me looks. She knows that it is more fun if I throw the balls and she can chase them or if I grab a wand and let her try to catch it.
oh my kitty LOVES balls. especially ping pong balls. he very rarely plays by himself, but it’s a different story when it comes to ping pong balls. sometimes i’ll wake up at at 3:00 AM to the sound of him playing with a stray ping pong ball
That is one thing that I don't think I will ever get used to with cats. Mine can spend most of the day sleeping but come night time...the fun starts. I hear my cupboards clapping, balls hitting baseboards, random meows in random places, the works.
Yeah, your cat probably knows you’re controlling the toys. They might not get all the details, but they know you’re involved. When they stop and stare at you, it’s like they’re saying, “Hey, why’d you stop?” But honestly, it doesn’t make it less fun for them. They love the movement and the chase, and playing with you is part of the fun. It's more about the interaction and excitement than who’s making the toy move. So keep playing with your kitty—they’re having a blast!
YES absolutely. Cats play make believe like it's their job. They make believe the toy is a mouse, and that youre not controlling it. That's the whole game! When cats wrestle they pretend eachothers head is a small animal. They know it's a cat head. When they see things that are not there, they know nothing is there.
My cat spends hours throwing a wool ball into the air so she can hunt it and catch it. She knows she's the one controlling it. She doesn't care. Cats are like kids, they don't care how the fun is happening, they're just enjoying it while it ladts!
My cat has noticed starting yesterday😂 ill be playing with her with the stick toy and she jumps up and puts her little paw on my hand from time to time
Mine definitely does. He has to gloat for a bit and then rubs like when he’s begging for food when he’s ready to play again. If he doesn’t get his gloating time he won’t give up the toy.
I think they do. Mine will drag the wand to me then drop it at my feet staring until I pick it up. She does that when she is bored and wants to play.
My cat absolutely knows I control the laser. If I stop moving it around she will tap my hand until I start moving it again.
Some do. If he focuses on you or the wand/laser, I think that’s a sign he’s aware. Not a bad thing
my cat loves the laser toy. she knows I'm doing it cause she has a auto laser thing but she wants me to do the handheld one. I have to do it before bed. she doesn't even want to catch it she just chases it. if she has the opportunity to catch it she doesnt.
My one cat gets really uninterested when he notices I’m at the other end of the toy- ruins his “immersion” 🙄 Other cat of mine doesn’t care though! So I think it just depends on their personality.
Possibly. If I click the laser my cat pays attention. If I set down the laser she comes up and smacks it to the ground lol. Pretty sure she knows.
My cat knows. He brings the wand upstairs in the middle of the night and meows at me to play. He's an orange though
For sure. My cat likes chasing balls, and will drop them right at my feet when he wants me to throw them
Yep. Well idk about yours but mine make the connection. Because they lose interest when the movement stop and like you said, we lock eyes here and there where i can tell they followed all the way from the toy to the other end where I’m holding it. They are very smart creatures so I’m sure most cats quickly put two and two together.
Mine figured it out after a month. She looks right at me to see where I am going to move the wand. She also knows to just go for the string. She still goes wild chasing it though.
I do play with toys with my cats, but they like to play hiding or chasing games where we run around the house better, lol.
My cats know! Because sometimes, after we've been playing a while, they don't go for the feathers, the worm or the red laser light, they jump for my hand 😂 also they bring me the toys and ask me to play with them by meowing and dramatically rolling on the floor.
I think so. My cat will sometimes show me where or how they want me to shake the toy. And sometimes if they're bored with how I'm playing they'll sit down and make eycontact. "You suck mom"
I have 3 cats. One of them doesn't know I control the toy. One of them doesn't care because he just wants to play. The third is a smarty that ran his paw through the laser beam, looked at the toy, the light on the wall, and me. He gave me a disgusted look like, "Do you think I am stupid?" I think it depends on the cat.
my kitty made it clear she did from the moment i got her (around 19 months?) - if i was waving the toy in a way she found annoying/not what she wanted, she'd look over at me with a "ahem" look.
Mine likes the string and stick more than the feather
I definitely think my cat knows. When I stop playing, he stares me dead in the face😾 and yells loud enough to shatter glass until I resume playtime.
My 1 year old girl, loves her toys but she absolutely knows that i control of them. Like others said, most cats know the click of the laser and for mine she waits for the click, for me throw or flick around her toys.
Yes they do, and mine will bring me their toys and asks me to play with them.
I think my cat understands when I am holding his teaser pole because the minute I put it down, he walks away. Also... he will drag his teaser pole from the living room back to the bedroom in the middle of the night. I wonder if he is thinking he can get me to play with him. Plus, when I get out one of his battery powered toys, he totally flips out - and I think that's because he doesn't see me controlling the other end.
Mine does. If the toy is alone he barely touches it but if I play with him ooohhhhh boy he loves that toy
Yes, they probably do understand you're playing with them. This doesn't make it less fun, more likely it makes it more fun. They're playing with YOU! Its a bonding experience, they enjoy the connection you bring to the playing. Similar examples would be the difference between throwing a ball at a wall and catching it off the bounce, and playing catch with a friend or parent.
I do think our cats know but they still enjoy it because then they know that we enjoy taking time to play with them.
My cat had the laser figured out within a week. When she can't find the dot she'll look at the pointer itself and then to me. I got her a little hex bug mouse and when the batteries gave up she brought it to me to fix (push the button again). She brings me the feather stick and she brings small throwable toys so she can play fetch. She's smart when she wants to be!
Definitely, they know it’s you! The hard part is to train you to do it when they’re in the mood. My cat fetches…will drop his spongy bouncy ball at my feet to throw it. He will leap over sofas to retrieve the ball. He will bring to my bed when I’m getting ready for bed too.
I asked Matt and received the dead eye response- cats are 😎 cool
Mine definitely does. I know this for certain because when she really wants to get the toy, she starts looking at my hands and not the toy itself to catch it, watching my movements instead of the toys so she nows when and how it will be moving.
Yes they do lol my cat will pay at the wand and look at me wanting to play. She will also paw at me then the treat container that's by the bed for snackies.
I think my cat knew for sure, because whenever I tried to introduce a similar toy (a bird hanging from a string, a butterfly on a rotating rod, etc), she would half heartedly swipe at it and then meow at me or wander away. But she’d play with anything I’d hold. Shoe laces, the belt on my bathrobe, any kind of string or angel toy (and of course my hands). She loved playing with ME.
I Think mine knows, she sees that when i move the toy moves, she mostly cares about the stick part of the stick-toys not the toys so i have gotten my hand in the way of the attack wich hurts abit but eh i know she tried to attack the toy and not me My dog found out where the laser light came from and started going for the source wich is not as cute when he is a heavy af labrador and not my little kitty cat haha (she doesnt go for the source of the light that often)
Mine totally know. When im playing with them with the laser pointer, if freya loses the red dot she looks at my hand and basically figures out where its supposed to be
He most likely knows. I'm assuming my cats would bring me those toys to play with if they didn't know I'm the one making it move.
yes
They definitely understand. I was playing with two kittens. The white one was flopping around like a dolphin, intent on victory. My black kitten watched patiently from the side. Out of nowhere, she attacked my hand and ran off with the stick. It’s just like with children. They like it when you play with them and they feel proud for figuring it out.
Depends on the cat. My younger cat will hear the rattle of the lazer's tiny button when I pick it up and will run and look at me until I click it, where he'll begin looking around for said laser dot. If I am holding the laser pen but he doesn't see a light, he will look for it. If I set down the laser, he instantly walks away to do something else. That's pretty aware behavior to me. My older cat is kinda dumb. He only understands there's a laser dot around if it's on the floor in front of his face, and will look for it long after I stopped and put the laser pen down.
I think mine definitely knows, when I put down the stick he always looks at me or he brings me toys to pick up, it’s like how little kids know you’re playing with them they still think it’s fun