Cheapest Place to Buy: Amazon
My Rating: 4 out of 5
Petlinks Mystery Motion Automatic Cat Toy Product Overview
Ever have the need to play with your cats but don’t have the time or the patience to do it yourself? While I highly recommend you normally play with your cats personally, I know sometimes you just have other stuff to do and you need to offload some of the responsibility to a machine! We humans do this with almost everything these days, so why not cat play time? If you aren’t quite sure why it is important to play with your cat then check this page out at VetStreet.
In the realm of automatic cat toys this has been one of my favorites so far. It has proven to engage my cats time and time again and so long as I don’t try to use it every single day I have great luck getting them to play with it for a pretty good chunk of time. They’ll pounce on it, flip it over, drag it around, and even roll all over it from time to time. Who knows what those little furballs are thinking?! Here’s a quick high level rundown of the major categories of interest though:
- Pricing: At the price of a couple of beers at a Chicago bar I think it is a great investment if you can entertain your cats with it for just an hour.
- Noise Level: This definitely isn’t a toy you’d want to leave on if you’re trying to have a conversation, it is quite loud.
- Ease of Use for Cats: Cats take to it really quickly, at least both my cats and all of my foster cats have enjoyed it at one time or another.
- Ease of Use for Humans: Doesn’t get much easier, one single button and some batteries.
- Quality: I’ve actually been quite impressed with the durability. Since my cats will even pick it up and drag it around I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the motor hasn’t given out or failed yet.
How Was the Setup & Use?
The setup was a breeze. The instructions are incredibly straight forward and also completely unnecessary to be honest. They only have a few simple steps. You can watch my YouTube video of the setup below, but it only took about 30 seconds once I had all of the parts out of the box.
As you can see both Lexi and Beast get a kick out of the toy. I do find that from day to day their moods vary. Sometimes they love it and they’ll play with it for 15-20 minutes and other times they’ll walk past it like it doesn’t exist. The latter tends to happen if you try to use it too often and aren’t actually engaging with your cats and playing with them yourself. Toys can only do so much to take the place of actually interacting with your furry friend!
My General Take:
I give it a solid 4 stars, so far it has been a great product and has helped get my cats some exercise when I am in the middle of something and don’t have time to play with them. There are of course some things that would make it better, but given that it comes in at a pretty darn affordable price point and it has held up for a good long time I am very happy with my investment so far!
One additional item to call out is that since it isn’t just a piece of string on the end it is much less likely that your cat can quickly chew it off which can result in a useless toy or a medical problem. I’ve had this trouble with the toys that automatically throw strings on a random cadence and this is an additional perk compared to those.
The Pros:
- The multiple settings do help throw cats for a loop and keep them engaged.
- My cats still can’t seem to figure out that it is moving under the cover, they keep pouncing and looking!
- It simulates an actual hunt much better than a laser pointer, the cat actually gets to claw/chew on something.
- It is quite durable, mine has taken a constant beating for almost a year now and is working fine.
- Super easy to put together.
- It lasts a long time with daily use on the 3 AA batteries. Mine has lasted months without issue.
Room for Improvement:
- Adding in a self shut off timer would be a great addition so you could start it as you leave the house to keep the cats engaged.
- It would be nice if it was a bit quieter, but this certainly isn’t a deal breaker.
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What’s In the Box?
- 1 Motor Box w/ Rotating Arm
- 1 Feather Attachment
- 1 Mystery Cover
Frequently Asked Questions
- Are the batteries included?
- No, they aren’t.
- What type and how many batteries does it take?
- It takes 3 AA batteries.
- Is it quiet or loud?
- I would say it is pretty loud for an automatic cat toy. This could scare off skittish cats.
- How long do the batteries last?
- Mine have lasted for several months with on and off use in about 15 minute increments.
- Will it break easily if the cats pounce on it or drag the feather in the wrong direction?
- While my cats are admittedly not super rough with toughs in general, they have definitely picked this toy up by the feather and it is still operating without any problem in regular operation.
- What will I need to put it together?
- The only tool you’d need is a phillips head screw driver.
If you have any other thoughts on the Petlinks Mystery Motion automatic toy please leave a comment below or send me an email at Craig@StuffCatsWant.com so I can update this article.
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