5 Cheap and Easy DIY Pet Toys

Pet Fun
5 Cheap and Easy DIY Pet Toys

Have you ever been in this situation: you buy a bunch of toys from the pet store to bring home to your furry friends, you’re so excited to give them their gifts, and then they don’t even play with them? Or worse—they play with the box?

My cat is consistently guilty of this. I’ll buy lots of cute toys only to have him play with the twist ties. Rather than spending lots of money on toys that they probably won’t play with, I’ve found that making my own pet toys is a much better (and cheaper!) option.

I’ve put together five tutorials for quick, easy, and cheap DIY toys for your pets!

DIY Cat Wand

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Supplies:

  • A piece of felt (multiple if you want to make it colorful!)
  • Wooden Dowel
  • Fabric Tape
  • Hot Glue Gun and Sticks
  • Scissors

 

Directions:

  1. Cut your piece (or pieces) of felt into strips.petdiy2
  2. Hot glue the strips around one end of the wooden dowel, overlapping when necessary.

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  1. Wrap fabric tape around wooden dowel starting where the felt meets to dowel.

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  1. Enjoy your new cat wand!

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DIY Pom Pom Toy

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Supplies:

  • Small amount of fleece. You can use scraps!
  • Small piece of cardboard
  • Scissors

 

 

 

Directions:

  1. Cut your fleece into approximately 7 strips

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  1. Wrap 6 strips around the piece of cardboard, picking up the next strip where the last strip left off then remove it from cardboard

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  1. Stretch the 7th strip out and lay it beneath the rolled up fleece

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  1. Tie the strip around the rolled up fleece as tight as you can get it and then trim the ends of the string

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  1. Cut through all of the loops

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6.Enjoy your new pom pom toy!

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DIY Spring Cat Toy

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Supplies:

  • Wooden Dowel (Or a pencil!)
  • Pipe cleaners

 

 

 

 

Directions:

  1. Wrap a pipe cleaner in a spiral around the wooden dowel. Be sure to fold down the metal ends of the pipe cleaner to protect your pet from hurting themselves!petdiy14
  1. Wrap a second pipe cleaner in the spaces of the first

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  1. Remove the pipe cleaners from the dowel and watch your cat fall in love!

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DIY Treat Ball

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Supplies:

  • Empty Toilet Paper Roll
  • Scissors
  • Treats/Catnip/Bell/Whatever you want to place inside (optional)

 

 

 

Directions:

  1. Cut toilet paper roll into 4 small rings about a finger’s width

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  1. Place ring 1 inside of ring 2

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  1. Put in ring 3 and 4

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  1. Place your items inside and enjoy! I put treats in mine, but I’d recommend a small bell for your cat!

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DIY Fleece Knot Toy

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Supplies:

  • Scraps of fleece. This is good time to use your leftover fleece from the Pom Pom balls!
  • Scissors
  • Catnip/treats (optional)

 

 

Directions:

  1. Cut a small rectangle of fleece. Mine was approximately 4” x 10”

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  1. Stretch the fleece, place the catnip/treat inside and tie in a knot

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  1. Give it to your pet and enjoy!

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All of these DIYs were cheap and very easy to do! My cat, Percy, loved the spring toy the best! Even when I gave him some of the others that had treats inside, he wouldn’t let his spring toy get too far away.

I hope that you and your pets have a lot of fun creating and playing with these DIY pet toys!