Said It Here

How to play with multiple pets without one hogging all the toys

Energetic pets often hog toys during group play, causing more timid animals to give up and walk away, while separating them just leads to crying and confusion. This dynamic prevents balanced playtime and stops all pets from enjoying activities together.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Playing with the high-energy cat until it gets too tired so the others can play
  2. 2
    Finding different toy preferences for each cat to engage them separately
  3. 3
    Rewarding calm behavior or 'eyes on cat on me' around the cat
  4. 4
    Using a 'leave it' command or recall to end play time followed by sending the pet to their bed

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

“its difficult trying to play with 3 cats at once, and if i separate them they all start crying and get confused.”source ↗

“Jack (the :3 cat) plays very excitedly and winds up hogging the toy while the other 2 just stalk from the outskirts and then eventually give up and go lay down.”source ↗

CoalMine_Canary_ · r/cats · 7 upvotes

“Sometimes the dog goes too far and it seems he is biting too hard and making the cat uncomfortable.”source ↗

“How can I best discipline this? I don’t want him to have a negative association with the cat, and I want them to like each other’s company. How can I teach him to play nicely?”source ↗

Objective-Room-1383 · r/puppy101 · 2 upvotes

Where this came up

r/catsr/puppy101behaviorcatsdogspets

People with this problem also raised