Exercise is important, certainly.
And we provide the cats with a variety of toys to encourage them to romp and frolic.
Yes, a variety. It’s not all balls, really.
But, to update an old saying, you can lead a cat to exercise, but you can’t make him work out.
We’ve learned that some days the most exercise you can convince them to get is shaking a ball free when it gets snagged on a claw.
It may not be much in the way of caloric expenditure, but at least it teaches a valuable lesson in claw control.
Koi Scribblings 
Don’t i know it. I have two porkers in the house, whose idea of exercise is waddling to the dish. I don’t overfeed the cats, but they’re just dedicated fressers who Hoover up everything another cat leaves behind — and a couple of mine need to put on weight, so I can’t just be ruthless about tiny portions overall. I got a cat exercise wheel once, no, really. That was a bust.
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Best exercise tool in terms of consistent appeal seems to be the bundle of feathers on a fishing pole. Even the Little Red Dot has its off days–and there are some cats who don’t seem to be able to see it at all. But the feathers always draw a crowd.
As for variable feedings, we do a smallish collective feeding in the evening, and then the ones who need more get a separate breakfast behind closed doors. It’s not perfect, but it helps.
How bad was the exercise wheel? Did they avoid it completely, or did they curl up inside it and go to sleep?
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Everyone ignored it except for Nickel Catmium, who was the one that really needed it. She would put her forepaws in and make it sway, but that was it.
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Well, at least she *tried*.
But yeah, the idea of a feline exercise wheel always struck me as a bit improbable.
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Whole litters of Bengals (like Nickel) were using them in the videos…
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I have a sneaking suspicion that for every minute of video shown, 29 more of them sniffing the wheel suspiciously were filmed and discarded…
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Anais has yet to learn anything about claw control, and I have the scars to prove it.
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Believe me, she’s not alone in that (nor are you alone in bearing scars). I said that getting toys stuck on their claws taught them a valuable lesson. I didn’t say anything about them actually *learning* the lesson!
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Hehe! That does sound very familiar lol
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You mean European cats don’t work out regularly? How disillusioning!
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They are just as lazy as the rest of the feline world 😉
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