Keep an open mind because dog toys can be great for cats too! They are often heavier which provides a greater challenge and they usually hold more food for multiple cat households.
This Busy Buddy toy can be made increasingly more difficult by filling smaller objects and placing them inside this puzzle so the cats have to get food out of two objects at once. A weighted object could also be adding for increased challenge.
Hitchinson shows you how here!
These jars make a great puzzle! They are easy to fill for the humans and opaque with only one hole so they are more challenging for your cats. You can fill a smaller object such as an egg and place inside to really increase the difficulty level or simply "dummy-fill" with other small cat toys so that the hole is sometimes obstructed as the cat manipulates the jar!
All of the foraging toys made by Fundamentally Feline are hand-made.
This is an intricate and challenging stationary food puzzle. This video shows cats figuring out and solving the five different sections. This puzzle can accommodate canned food in some compartments as well as dry food. This is a toy is for the experienced forager!
Any ole wine box will do to make this super easy and cheap foraging toy. Watch to see how these three silly's utilize this object. They are pretty hilarious. It helps if you have long legs for this one!
Similarly you can use any compartmentalized box such as a beer caddy as well! Cheers!
Foraging cubes are one of the most difficult food puzzles you can offer your cat. Most cats are initially pretty stumped by cubes but once they do get the hang of it they are unstoppable! Foraging ping-pong balls can also be combined with these cubes to further increase the challenge. Simply fill ping-pong with dry food, place inside the cube and offer that to your cat. This way they have to accomplish acquiring food from two objects at once! A puzzle for the Kitty Einstein/Master Forager for sure!
Milly, the star of the video below, is one of the kitties featured in the table of our Food Puzzle paper in the JFMS. She is the very last kitty in the table if you follow the link provided.
One of the more challenging of the commercial food puzzles, the pryamid is weighted, heavy and also comes in an opaque version making it great for an experienced forager. The challenge is tipping it over! Similar to a Weeble-Wobble, it will constantly right itself and stand back up.
This is a great beginner toy for multi-cat households. Food goes in through the top and funnels into the tunnels. If you wish to increase the challenge further, fill ping-pong balls and place inside the tunnels. This way the cats must spin the balls to get the food to dispense and then extract it from the tunnel.
Foraging eggs are an awesome and versatile toy. They are opaque and provide erratic movement, keeping kitty entertained and on the move. The eggs can be filled and placed inside other foraging toys such as the cup or any of the “gear” toys to increase the difficulty level for your master forager!
Gus so nicely demonstrates the difficulty of oddly shaped items. When full this object can be quite heavy making it difficult to manipulate. For Gus it is no problem! Eating this way has helped Gus loose weight. Please share this video if you know an overweight kitty who could benefit from learning to forage for their food.
This video shows Willow foraging from a protein shake container. You truly can make a food puzzle out of just about anything in your home and the goal here to show you how to do that!
It is nice to offer a variety of commercially available and homemade puzzles. Remember this is not only a feeding protocol but also mental stimulation!
