Picking Good Toys for Your Cat: A Guide

So, let’s break down the ingredients and figure out why the cats weren’t interested. The first ingredient listed was “fresh chicken.” But let’s be real—if you take fresh chicken, grind it up, form it into a tube, and leave it out, it’s going to start to smell and rot. How can a company claim this is “fresh” chicken?

The only way it’s possible is the company isn’t telling the full story!

What kind of chicken do you think they’re using? It’s definitely not the high-quality cuts we buy for ourselves. What’s actually in that chew stick is likely chicken that came from factory farms, died prematurely, and was discarded. After sitting in a dumpster for weeks, it was processed into a powder and called “chicken meal.” This isn’t fresh chicken—it’s a dead food that doesn’t smell or taste good, which explains both why the cats weren’t interested in it and why it didn’t immediately start rotting in the packaging.

These companies are geniuses at marketing to us. They understand what we want to see, but we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, “Does this really make sense?” A chew stick made from “fresh chicken” that doesn’t require refrigeration? It just doesn’t add up. No wonder the cats refused to eat it.

The original goal of my client was to find something to help clean their cats’ teeth, but once again, this is just clever marketing. Here’s a fun experiment for you to help prove my point: For the next six months, try eating only hard, crunchy food—and don’t brush your teeth, since most of us don’t brush our cats’ teeth.   This should give you an idea of whether chewing on dry food or hard toys really cleans teeth.

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Spoiler: it doesn’t.

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Most of this is just marketing misinformation, misleading us into thinking there are simple solutions for cleaning our cats’ teeth. While there are ways to help, it requires a proactive approach—starting when your cat is young. For many of us, we didn’t know about things like brushing with coconut oil when our cats were babies.

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I applaud pet owners who are trying to find natural ways to care for their cats, but remember: the term “natural” isn’t regulated. In fact, “natural” doesn’t always mean healthy. After all, poop is natural, but that’s not going to clean anyone’s teeth!

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The key is finding something truly healthy—and that’s not always as easy as it sounds.

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