Stopping cat toys from going under the couch

Orogogus

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Is there anything I can buy to block off the gaps at the bottoms of my couches to prevent my cats from knocking their cat toys underneath all the time?

The goods:

mightyjongyo

You...could buy bigger cat toys? Other than that I guess you could buy some blocks of wood and close off all the gaps yourself. I've never come across anything that's marketed specifically for stopping things from going under the couch.

WildEEP

There is something called Toy Goalie that I've seen used to good effect.

Orogogus

Is that Toy Goalie something actually being sold? The first few links off of Google suggest that they were looking into manufacturing opportunities in 2009, but I can't find anywhere selling them.

Wood blocks don't seem ideal, as they'd just get knocked under the couch as well. A secondary concern was that I was hoping for something that wouldn't be so much of an eyesore. I mean, I could wrap duct tape around the feet of the couches, too, but I'd rather it didn't come to that. It's not life or death, I was just hoping there would be an elegant solution.

The Crowing One

It strikes me that using those cloth tubes generally for shoring up a drafty door could work. As long as they were held firmly under the couch, they'd be both out of sight and would make for a nice little bounce when the cat whips a toy under there.

Edit: There's even an eHow article.

EggyToast

It may be a situation where you find spending 75¢ on a yardstick (so you can fish the toys out whenever you want) is going to be easier and cheaper than spending a fair amount on a net, cardboard, or wood solution that permanently alters your couch.

Kate of Lokys

If it's really an issue for you, I think your best option would be to fill the space under the couch so there's nowhere for cat toys to roll out of reach. Even something as simple as a sheet of plywood, cut to fit, would work. If you left it a couple of inches in from the edge of the couch, it wouldn't be visible, and even if a toy did get batted up against it, the toy would still be within easy paw range of your cats.

Really, though, why not just use the couch as a way to rotate toys? Keep a dozen different ones on hand: whenever one gets lost under the couch, throw a fresh one down, then when you run out of fresh ones, lift up the couch, scoop them all up, and suddenly your kitties are super-happy because they haven't seen that one mouse for so long, they forgot they even had it, and it's like a brand-new toy to them.

Orogogus

The problem is that the couches take up most of my living room space, so the cat toys get lost under there in a matter of minutes. I don't mind fishing them out, but it occurred to me that if this was preventable then my cats might be more active for the other 8 hours and 50 minutes of the day when I'm not home but the toys are all already under the couch again. They don't play with each other, but they love their toys.

JebusUD

Orogogus wrote: »

The problem is that the couches take up most of my living room space, so the cat toys get lost under there in a matter of minutes. I don't mind fishing them out, but it occurred to me that if this was preventable then my cats might be more active for the other 8 hours and 50 minutes of the day when I'm not home but the toys are all already under the couch again. They don't play with each other, but they love their toys.

I'm fairly certain cats are designed by evolution to be mega lazy. Even if the toys were out they would probably just tire of them.

I'd suggest some heavy cloth, pit it to the hemming of the couch.

Or get taller couches.

ronya

Some wooden blocks or bricks, raise the couches? :P

Or duct tape and some cardboard.

Darksier

Cardboard tubes from paper towels worked for us. We wedged them under the couch and it stopped stuff from going under. Unfortunately our diabolical cats decided that this act ruined their fun so they moved on to shoving their toys under the oven : (

Leafgreen

see below. Double post mistake.

Leafgreen

I had the same problem. Stuffing wood blocks or other items seems very unwieldy, inconvenient or unattractive. I ended buying a netting that prevents stuff from getting under the couch. Looks fine, works perfectly, cheap.