More cat toys

The Play-n-Squeak Mouse Door Hanger cat toy chirps rather than squeaks, but the cats love it anyway. Even the deaf white cat Sheba loves it, so the chirping/squeaking is apparently a secondary attraction.

The toy mouse dangles from long elasticized line attached to a short rod that attaches to the top of a door. This puts the dangling mouse about four inches from the door, making it easy for the cat to smash it against the door. With each smash, the mouse bounces and chirps, inciting the cat to yet another attack.

From my office down the hall, all I hear is a pleasant chirping.

This is far superior to the Panic Mouse, a battery-powered cat toy we bought last year that thrashed a mouse around on a long metal wire at variable speeds. The gadget made a grinding sound that drove us mad, and the cats got freaked out, too, since nothing they did stopped the wired mouse from thrashing. We found out later that there was a slightly more expensive version of the Panic Mouse that comes with a timer.

Still, the most popular cat toys in the house are the tiny rabbit fur mice we buy in packs of 12 at Petco. Kaylee and Zoe play with them until they fall to pieces. We have mice under the sofa, mice under the stove, and in the morning I stock my pockets with mice to keep Kaylee busy while I work. (BTW, we've tried the faux-fur mice by the same vendor and the cats have utterly ignored them.)