From Kitten to Critic: 18 Months Testing Cat Toys with Winnie & Roo
I started Little Paws and Claws because the cat-toy aisle made me angry.
Every box on the shelf was the same: oversized plastic packaging, a tiny tag promising "interactive enrichment", and a toy that fell apart in a week. I'd spent £30 by my second month as a cat owner and had two cats who were ignoring everything.
So I started making toys properly. And the chief testers — the only people whose opinion actually matters here — are two cats called Winnie and Roo.
Meet Winnie
Winnie is grey, opinionated, and watches everything I do with the energy of a small bureaucrat checking for paperwork errors.
When Winnie was a kitten, she was the easy one. She'd play with anything. A bottle cap, a sock, the corner of a rug. By month six she'd developed a strong opinion about what was beneath her, and from that point on her engagement curve became the most useful product test we have.
If a toy can hold Winnie's attention past day three, it's good. If she's still playing with it at week two, it's exceptional.
The Cat Feather Wand exists because Winnie was the one who finally engaged with a wand-style toy. Most wands she'd ignore — too plasticky, feathers stuck on with glue, motion too predictable. The version we sell uses natural feathers attached with cotton thread to a flexible wand, and it's the one she'd still come find when she heard me pick it up.
Meet Roo
Roo is brown, fast, and approaches life like it owes him money.
He's the chaos agent. If a toy can be batted at high speed across a hardwood floor, knocked off a sofa, dragged into a tunnel, and chewed on for a minute before being launched again — Roo will do all of it inside an hour.
This is why he's the durability tester. Anything Roo can destroy in a week, we don't list.
The S-shape rainbow tunnel was tested entirely by Roo. He lives in it. He sleeps in it. He ambushes Winnie from it. When we get suppliers to send us prototype tunnels, we know within two days whether the seams hold up because Roo will have tested every one.
How we actually test
People assume product testing is glamorous. It is not. It mostly looks like this:
Day 1: Set up the toy where the cats will encounter it naturally. No introduction, no presentation. Just place it and walk away.
Days 2-3: Track which cat approaches first, how long they engage, and whether they come back.
Days 4-7: Watch for sustained interest vs novelty crash. Most cheap toys lose appeal by day 4. Good ones hold steady. Great ones increase in engagement as the cat figures out new ways to play with them.
Days 8-14: Durability check. Are feathers still attached? Suction cups still holding? Faux fur intact? Anything coming loose that a cat could swallow?
If a toy passes all three phases, it goes into the small group of products we actually sell. Most prototypes don't make it.
What we've learned in 18 months
Rotation matters more than quantity. Buying ten new toys won't entertain your cat. Owning five toys and rotating two out of the box per week will. Cats want novelty, not abundance.
The "best toy" doesn't exist. Winnie likes wands. Roo likes tunnels. Different cats want different things. The buying guides that tell you "one toy to rule them all" haven't met enough cats.
Plastic is the enemy. Anything with hard plastic edges, glued-on parts, or synthetic glittery bits is a hazard. Cats chew. They swallow. They get sick. We use cotton, faux fur, natural feathers, and soft materials only.
Indoor cats need play more than outdoor cats need exercise. The RSPCA recommends 30 minutes of active play daily for indoor cats. Most owners do five. Hands-free toys like our suction-base wand exist for exactly this reason — they let the cat self-play when you're busy.
What's next
We're expanding the range slowly. Two more SKUs are in testing right now — both currently failing the Roo durability test, which means they'll be revised again before we get anywhere near listing them.
If you'd like to follow along, we'll post the next round of testing on our Pinterest and on this blog.
And if you want to skip the buying guesswork and try toys that Winnie and Roo have already approved, browse the full collection here →
Winnie and Roo are not paid for their work. They are paid in food, lap time, and unlimited tunnel access.
Robbie Crooks is the founder of Little Paws and Claws Ltd, a UK Cheshire-based cat-toy company. He has been owned by cats his entire life.