
Bought it for the kids, but our Bengal, Kimchi, has completely taken ownership. He hears the fan spin up now and sprints in from the other end of the flat. Two weeks in and he has not got bored once.
your cat is about to lose its entire mind
The cat is asleep on the sofa in the shape of a croissant. It has been asleep for eleven hours. It has plans to continue.
Then ten holes open up and the living room fills with a slow-moving wall of iridescent bubbles, and something ancient wakes up behind those eyes. The croissant unfolds. The pupils go full dinner-plate. What follows is roughly ninety seconds of pure, unhinged, vertical cat â off the sofa, off the armchair, briefly off the wall â swatting at physics itself.
the dad purchase that actually pays off
Most things you buy for the cat get sniffed once and then ignored forever in favour of the box it came in. This is not that. This is the one where you look like a genius in front of the entire family for under thirty quid.
Because there are ten holes, not one, the bubbles come out as a continuous stream rather than a sad little bubble every few seconds. The cat never gets to finish the job. Every bubble it murders is immediately replaced by nine more. It cannot win, and it will not stop trying, and you get to sit there filming it.
what you are actually buying
It is a compact rectangular handheld unit with a carry handle on top and a fan grille on the side. Ten bubble holes across the front. You fill it with bubble solution, drop in batteries, hold the button, and it fires continuously for as long as you hold it â no pumping, no waving it around, no technique required. A child can operate it, and generally will.
It runs on batteries, so there is no cable to trip over and nothing to plug in. Use it on the living room floor, in the hallway, or out in the garden on a still day. Comes in white or black â pick whichever will be less visible when you inevitably leave it on the kitchen counter for three weeks.
the honest bit â please read this one
This matters more than anything else on this page. Cats groom themselves constantly, so every bubble that lands on your cat's fur gets licked off and swallowed within the hour. Use a non-toxic, pet-safe bubble solution â nothing else. Not washing-up liquid, not the cheap unlabelled stuff from the seaside shop. If the bottle does not clearly say non-toxic and pet-safe, do not put it in the machine.
Do not aim the machine at your cat's face. Fire it across the room or upwards and let the cat come to the bubbles â bubbles in the eyes or up the nose are unpleasant and will teach your cat to hate the thing. Bubble residue makes hard floors genuinely slippery, so wipe up wet patches on wood, tile or laminate afterwards, for the cat's sake and for yours. And supervise play rather than leaving it running in an empty room. Ninety seconds of chaos, then put it away.

Bought it for the kids, but our Bengal, Kimchi, has completely taken ownership. He hears the fan spin up now and sprints in from the other end of the flat. Two weeks in and he has not got bored once.

Works exactly as described and my cat adores it. Only note is battery life â I got about three and a half hours of on-and-off use from the first set of AAs. Buy rechargeables, you will get through them.

Full disclosure, my cat ignored this completely for the first two days. Walked past it like it owed her money. Day three something clicked and she has been absolutely feral about it ever since. Give it time.

We have a Maine Coon the size of a small dog and he cannot be bothered with most toys. Took this out to the garden on a still evening and he was leaping about like a kitten. Barely any wind is the trick.

Did not expect the dog to get involved but our spaniel now body-checks the cat out of the way to get to the bubbles first. Chaos in the best possible way. The cat is furious about it.

Being honest â the motor noise frightened my older cat, Biscuit, at first and she bolted under the bed the first two times. I started running it in the next room so she got used to the sound, and now she is fine with it. Just do not spring it on a nervous cat.

I am the dad who buys the cat things nobody asked for. This is the first one that has actually landed. Ten holes means it never stops, so the cat never gets that satisfied moment of finishing. Cruel. Excellent.

Our rescue tortoiseshell, Pepper, is nervous of nearly everything and I honestly did not think she would go near it. She stalked the bubbles from behind the armchair for ten minutes and then committed fully. Lovely to watch.

Worth saying loudly â get proper pet-safe solution for this. Mine licks every bubble off her fur straight afterwards, so whatever you put in the tank is going in the cat. Works brilliantly with the non-toxic stuff.

Got the black one for my daughter's birthday and it turned into a cat-and-kids event in the living room. One warning from experience: it made our wooden floor properly slippery, so keep a towel handy and wipe up after.