Pets · Head-to-head
Cat Dancer Products Cat Dancer vs Catit Senses Food Tree
Which should you buy? Our verdict on both, pulled from our full The Best Cat Toys: 4 Compared (and One to Skip) comparison.
The Cat Dancer gets more cats moving than anything else here, costs almost nothing, and has no detachable feather or ribbon to swallow. Pair it with the Catit Senses Food Tree so the cat has a hunting job during the hours you are not holding the other end of a wire.
Cat Dancer Products Cat Dancer
Buy itA springy steel wire with rolled cardboard on the ends that moves more like real prey than any feather wand we tried.
- The spring steel wire rebounds unpredictably, producing the darting, stop-start motion that triggers a stalk instead of a bored glance.
- Nothing on it is glued, stitched or tied, so there is no feather, bell or ribbon to detach and be swallowed.
- Cat Dancer lists it as spring steel wire and rolled cardboard, made at the company's own Wisconsin factory and shipped in plastic-free packaging.
- The wire will kink permanently if a person steps on it or a heavy cat lands on it, and a kinked one moves badly.
- The rolled cardboard ends fray and soften after a lot of enthusiastic biting, so this is a consumable.
- It is a wand, which means supervised play only and a drawer between sessions - never a toy you leave on the floor.
Catit Senses Food Tree
Buy itA tiered plastic tower that makes a cat paw dry food out of openings one piece at a time, with three difficulty settings as the cat gets better at it.
- An internal disc adjusts the opening sizes across three settings, so you can make it easy on day one and harder once the cat has the idea.
- It works without you, which matters for the many hours a day an indoor cat is awake and unsupervised.
- Catit lists BPA-free plastic, a wide stable base, a see-through body and a removable top cover for filling and cleaning.
- Dry food and treats only, so it does nothing for a cat fed exclusively on wet food.
- Catit lists it at 14.8 by 14.8 by 13.1 inches, which is a lot of floor space for a feeding toy.
- In a multi-cat home the fast, confident cat can monopolise it while the timid one waits, so you may need one per cat.
Side by side
| Cat Dancer Products Cat Dancer | Catit Senses Food Tree | |
|---|---|---|
| Our verdict | Buy | Buy |
| Best for | Anyone who wants one toy that reliably gets a lazy indoor cat sprinting, and who will actually put it away afterwards. | Bored, food-motivated indoor cats on dry food, especially ones who inhale a bowl in thirty seconds and then nag. |
| Price tier | $ · budget | $$ · mid-range |
The bottom line
Our overall pick is the Cat Dancer Products Cat Dancer - A springy steel wire with rolled cardboard on the ends that moves more like real prey than any feather wand we tried. Choose the Catit Senses Food Tree instead if bored, food-motivated indoor cats on dry food, especially ones who inhale a bowl in thirty seconds and then nag.
Want the full picture, including the other options we compared and the popular one we'd skip? Read the complete The Best Cat Toys: 4 Compared (and One to Skip).