High Hopes Cat Toy
by Leo
Sadly, High Hopes went out of business years ago. It is a shame since we loved their products.
High Hopes is a wonderful company. They give 2.5% of every sale (up to 15% of profits) to the Pet Life Foundation. With each purchase of a High Hopes product you help needy animals. With that said I'll give the review of the cat toy.
The High Hopes Cat Toy is a simple concept, it is a heavy rubber ball base with a piano wire coming up out of it and a little rubber mouse head at the top of the piano wire. The rubber base is weighted so the wire stays pointed up. The piano wire can be bent or curved or left straight. When the mouse head is hit, the ball base will rock and the piano wire will bow back and forth causing the mouse head to move around in random patterns. The idea works great on a solid floor, but has problems on carpet. I have a High Hopes Cat Toy in my room on the carpet (there is no bare floor in the room). Even though it does not bob and weave as much as it would on a floor it does still move around enough to keep my interest when I play with it. I like it a lot. When David first bought it for me, Hamlet played with it on the kitchen floor and enjoyed it on a floor, but the slower subdued movement on carpet just does not hold his interest as much as mine.
On the plus side, if a human holds the ball and wiggles it by the cat horizontally it becomes a great interactive toy. The only major issue I have with the toy is the mouse head shape. The ears stand tall and thin. Sometimes when I get a bit over zealous biting the mouse, it will enter my mouth directly and I will gag a little on the ears. This is enough to annoy me and make me stop playing when it happens. I wish the toy had a ball shape or football shape as opposed to something with tall stick-like ears that can cause me to gag. The ears make me gag a lot more if David holds it interactively, since the ears face in to me. So he is not as keen on using it interactively even though I love it like that also.
Over all I do enjoy my toy and think it is sturdy and entertaining. I would recommend it for other cats, especially if you have a bare floor to put it on.