The nice people at Petmate reached out to us and asked if we would be interested in trying out the line of toys designed by cat expert Jackson Galaxy. You probably know him from his television program on Animal Planet, My Cat From Hell, but he has been observing and explaining cat behavior for a long time. This is his first line of toys for cats, and we were pretty excited to check them out.
Two of the toys in the package were the Mojo Maker – Air Prey and the Mojo Maker – Ground Prey These are both variations on the “cat fishing pole” design you’re probably familiar with. Both of them use telescoping wands rather than long, fixed-length ones, which is great for storage, and also for adapting them for play depending on the size of the area you are in.
The Mojo Maker – Ground Prey has a sturdy wire connecting it to the wand. The head peep liked this because she thought it would survive repeated attacks and wouldn’t break like a string would if we chewed on it. It arrived partially unassembled — the lure wasn’t attached to the little loop at the end of the wire. This didn’t look like a big deal, since the loop is kind of like the end of a safety pin, but she really struggled to get it open to put the lure on, then to close it again. This is probably good because a cat can’t accidentally open it up and then cut or pinch themselves with it, but if you’re gifting it to somebody with arthritis, make sure you help them assemble it so that they can use it.
Once it was put together, we loved chasing it around. Because it’s on a wire, it’s easy to have the little caterpillar-looking thing on the end lie still, then wiggle invitingly. Pierre really liked that. Once he had hold of it, he didn’t want to let go!
The Mojo Maker – Air Prey is a little different. At the end of the telescoping wand is a retractable string with a feather lure on the end. The lure is attached with the same safety-pin end that the Ground Prey version is, but this one came already attached and ready to play. And boy, did we play!
We have a video below showing a little of how much we enjoyed the Mojo Maker – Air Prey.
(If the video doesn’t display above, you can view it directly on YouTube.)
In the video, you can see that Pierre quickly started to figure out that he could use the cat tree for extra height when going after the lure.
The video also showed that Ashton will not play with it as long the boys are occupied with it. She usually plays with toys when no one else (especially the boys) are around, and she got some serious pouncing in on the Mojo Maker – Air Prey later, when they were not keeping it to themselves.
We also got a Twisted Kicker to try out. This is made of a velvet-type material and must be stuffed with some premium catnip, because we couldn’t resist grabbing, kicking, and biting it. Newton was so excited that he got it soaked with drool, but that didn’t stop Pierre from trying out his moves on it, too.
The last two toys we got in the package are kind of special. They’re called Natural Playtime.
Even though we never seem to touch them when any humans are looking, they seem move around at night, every night, on their own. Of course, this is because we love to play with them on our own at night. We can’t explain why we don’t play with them during the day — or while the camera is around — but they are in a new location every day, so they are fun, but we don’t like to be caught having fun with them.
In case you can’t tell, we give the Jackson Galaxy Petmate collection toys our high paws of approval!
FTC Disclosure: We received the Jackson Galaxy Petmate toys for free as part of our agreement to run this review and giveaway. It didn’t influence what we say or our opinions. All opinions expressed on this site are our own.
on it. I don’t think I want to be furless for even a little while, much less forever.
