Fling-AMA-String Cat Toy

I received this yesterday and my cat has literally played with it for 8 hours already. Even when he gets tired of it and walks away, it’s only a few minutes before he is back at it again! Essentially he is giving up because he is tired, but after a minute or two of this little string “daring to mock him”, he comes back to try to teach it a lesson; LOL, clearly a love/hate relationship...He has gotten pretty aggressive with it and it is holding up to his abuse without fail. The very durable string is mounted to basically an elastic conveyor belt, so every time he manages to catch the string, he can pull it out a little bit from the plastic base. When this happens, this thing is designed to essentially stop the motor, which starts right back up again the second he lets go; and I don’t know if this is by design, but as he pulls the string and conveyor away from the plastic unit, it seems to make a noise that mimics the shreak of a dying mouse or bird, which makes him absolutely crazy! Every once in a while he will pull on it extremely hard and it will get a little bit out of alignment, but it only takes me about 5 seconds to fix and it really isnt a problem at all. Although this product is meant to be set up on a door (which was so easy to install and the cat loves it there), I also tried attaching it to my cat tree which is even better! By putting it somewhere on a cat tree, he can now look at it and attack it from different angles. Even when he gets “sick of it”, I just turn it off for an hour and when I restart it he’s right back at it! He is a very high energy cat and this thing totally wore him out. Without a doubt, this is by far the best cat toy I have ever purchased! I applaud the designers; it is so simple, but a totally genius product. It gets out all of his restless energy and it saves me the hassle of having to play with him for hours on end. He slept so well last night and when I turned it back on this morning, he couldn’t wait to pounce on it again!

THE ONLIEST TOY!!! Amazon - thank you! I have had this for over 5 yrs - yes 5 yrs!! A couple of weeks ago, my Peachie was looking at it, then at me. She was telling me something wasn’t right. The white elastic had been stretched about 1-1/2 feet from all the play. So I cut the elastic and sewed it closer. She watched the entire process. It worked!! Crazy good!

My cats will sit by and watch the string go up, down and around for quite some time. I think it engages their hunting instincts, catching their eye and keeping their interest with the fast movement of the string. For that, I would give the toy five stars. Unfortunately, the batteries do not last in this toy. It has a great function of "turning off" after the cats stop interacting with it, yet even when the toy stops moving, it does not actually turn off, and drains the 3 AAA batteries. I was going through 3 AA batteries within a 24 hour period. Then I purchased rechargeable batteries for about $24, and now, that problem is solved. With that said, I do wish I could put the toy in sleep mode when the cats lose interest, so they can turn it on again when they decide it is time to play with the toy again. All in all, a smart invention, with quirks that need to be fixed, so, perhaps the 2.0 version with these fixes would be great, and would earn five stars from me at that time.

It is very difficult to find cat effective cat toys and this one works. Considering the medium price-point I recommend purchasing the product. I've given a rating of 3 stars for the reasons below: (a) If the toy is left "on" for an extended period by accident your batteries drain. For example I left it on yesterday and today the 3 aa batteries are wiped out. Not only is it unrealistic that cat owners will turn this on/off consistently - generally speaking it would be entirely better to have a timer which would turn the toy off. (b) The toy is intriguing to Shlomo (my cat) however his focus is short-lived. With that said, I have purchased other automated toys and will say that the Fling-Ama-String works best. All of the toys which keep Shlomo playing the longest are not electronic and won't offer "on demand" attention. Improvement suggestion: This isn't reflected into my rating because it's an extra feature not an issue - I think cat owners would agree that any toy which can keep the cat occupied when you are away is valuable. This product would be entirely better with a motion censor. Maybe there is some patent issue which is why it's not currently implemented. The more advanced version would be a motion sensor + a maximum playtime which cuts off the service temporarily after continuous use. For example if Shlomo creates enough motion the toy turns on. If he keeps playing non-stop (the motion censor is continuously triggered) for 20 seconds then it will cut off the service for 20 seconds. Btw - Does anyone have a suggestion for a motion censored toy which works and will keep my cat entertained while I am away (by any means)?