Product: CatIt Senses Play Circuit
Availability: Available from Amazon
If you are looking for a toy to keep your cats entertained by themselves then look no further as the CatIt Senses Play Circuit could be for you (and your cat). This is a fun track toy that can be made into many different shapes. Therefore, it has a lot of replayability.
The CatIt Senses Play Circuit is designed to appeal to your cats’ sight, sound and touch senses. It is specifically designed to entice, engage and entertain your cat whilst appealing to his natural hunting instincts. So how well does it live up to this claim? And furthermore, how much fun factor does it have for your cat.
What’s in the Box?
The box contains four white tracks all made from a sturdy plastic and four blue “tunnels” which are clipped into the top of the white track and have “peek-a-boo” cutouts. The box also contain a hard green and grey ball which is placed on the white track before clipping in the blue tops, and two end pieces.
The great thing is that this track toy can be made into different layouts and because the track pieces clip together it can be changed as many times as you want. With four track pieces you can make a circle (therefore, not needing the end pieces – remember to keep them somewhere safe though as I lost mine and then couldn’t change the layout), a question mark shape, an S shape or even a snake shape. My circuit was a plain circle.
Set-Up
This is pretty simple – each of the four white tracks has little sections that clip together and then there is a locking tab for each of these clips – this can be a little fiddly to clip the locking tab in place and you do need the tracks to lock properly as otherwise the ball will get stuck.
The blue tunnel pieces are then clipped onto the top of the white track. To set up the 4 pieces straight out of the box into a circle it took less than 5 minutes. (though I did forget to put the ball onto the white track so had to pull out one of the blue top pieces – which takes just a few seconds to do).
There is also a very comprehensive set up manual in the box which also gives an idea of some of the other shapes you can create for your CatIt Senses Play Circuit.
CatIt Senses Play Circuit Fun-Factor
The ball actually travels around the circuit rather quickly when it is swatted and the peek-a-boo tunnels allows the cat to stick their paw through in certain areas to swat the ball further – and to chase it around the track. This can also be used by two or three cats at once as they end up swatting the ball back and forth. It can keep cats occupied for ages and allow them to play while you watch.
But it’s just a circle (or a snake, or an S) I hear you cry, doesn’t it get boring after a while? Well this is the fun bit – you can buy extra boxes and join them all up with your original one. Yes this can get a little expensive but even getting a second box allows a load more variations to create. To just add the new pieces you just unclip the locking tabs and either take apart your original design and recreate a new design, or, take off the end caps and add your new track pieces.
With a second box I changed my original circle shape (which you can see my cat playing with at the top of this page) into a figure of 8. Just put only one ball into the track through. If you put two balls inside the track then they hit each other and stop. So it stops the original ball from completing a circuit and is less fun.
Here is a bit of a video of my cat playing with the new figure of 8 track.
Other Info
Durability wise, the Catit Senses Play Circuit is pretty sturdy. The plastic pieces are strong and have stood up to my cat whacking them on a regular basis. The only bit that is a little undependable is the slotting of the blue tunnel into the white track. Sometimes the blue tunnel does come out of the slots when your cat pulls it’s paw back out of the cut-outs. You just have to slot this back in when it comes out. You can also buy replacement balls incase your cat manages to lose the ball. We luckily had a spare with the new box as one of our balls has gone missing.
Conclusion
Price wise this is a good purchase . You can buy a box and then you can add extra boxes at your own leisure. However with just one box you can make a variety of different tracks.
Pros:
- Good fun factor – my cat comes back to play with this regularly
- Interactive and more than one cat plays at a time
- Safe – no small parts to break off
- Durable – plastic is very sturdy
- Variation – Add extra boxes and the variety of shapes and designs you can have is only limited to your imagination
Cons
- The blue tunnel pieces can come off but they are easy to reattach
I think I am going to get one of these for my daughter for her birthday. She actually asked for toys for her cat this year! This CatIt Senses Play Circuit reminds me of hamster tubes – I guess that is like the cat chasing the hamsters!
I have looked at those cat toys that are just a rod with a feather on the end of it that spin. These seem fragile to me but this product seems more durable. I appreciate your recommendation!
Thank you for your comment. I love that your daughter asked for cat toys for her birthday. Yes this is durable and you can get carried away buying more boxes and building tracks
Wow I love this! I think it helps that I also love cats though. They can be just as playful as dogs (and I love both). Your post is really informative and well written and I like that you have a video to show the toy in action. It would definitely tempt me to buy (if we still had cats). We have had loads over the years – we had two that lived for 18 years (and we liver near a fairly busy road) and one that we only had a few months who wasn’t so lucky (he was hit by a car just parking up and sadly didn’t recover.
Oh sorry to hear about your recent cat loss – this is why I have always had house cats. Dyson says thank you about the video – she was paid in Dreamies for her modelling skills and I had so much footage I had to cut some of it.
Having a cat myself, this product is very appealing to me. My cat is, however, very spoilt. But I think he would love one of these 😉 It could easily keep him entertained for an hour or so.
The information you have provided about the catit has really changed my opinion. I will definitely check it out
Thanks, Harry
thanks very much for the comment. I completely understand about spilt cats. Dyson modelled for the video in the article and demanded patmen
Our cat, Merlot, loves this! She plays with it for ages and bats away the dog so she doesn’t get involved. Hilarious. I thoroughly recommend this toy. Works even better if you add a pinch of catnip!
Thanks very much for your comment. Your cat batting the dog away did give me a chuckle. Strangely Dyson has never been into catnip – though if I put Dreamies with it she would jump through the wall
This is such a lovely review of this product. I was looking for something to entertain my cat, who spends several hours home every day and your video just blew me away. I love the way this toy engages the cat in multiple ways by awakening his hunting instincts, I can see him first stalking his pray and then playing with it. I can’t wait to see my cat doing this.
Hi thanks for your comment. This will definitely entertain your cat as you can see that my raggie loves it (and she can be lazy and fussy and a diva). Since this video was taken I have also got a kitten and she goes crazy over this toy
A good toy gives a pet a sense of accomplishment. And especially for cats – who are born hunters – they need to feel like they’ve achieved something and earned their keep, so to speak. So when my younger cat became frustrated that he couldn’t ‘kill’ the ball in the Catit Senses Play Circuit, what did he do? Crash tackled my older cat. Obvs. Kitty warfare ON. And still going, in case you re interested.