Remember Baby Einstein, the children's products company that introduced the arts and humanities to infants to stimulate their curious side and hopefully turn them into "geniuses" (at least before the iPhone)?
Pet toymakers are starting to spare no expense in making increasingly complicated toys, as more pet owners make the bet that graduating kitty from cat nip to interactive toys will increase the number of neurons firing in the feline.
Two new toys for cats make the point. The Nina Ottosson MixMax Puzzle is a sort of three-dimensional board game with sliding panels. The owner hides a treat within the network of pieces, and the cat has to move them to find it. Another, the SmartyKat Hot Pursuit, consists of a round plastic mat with an electronic mouse hidden underneath. The mouse scurries around out of sight, and Tabby jumps on the bulge and bats it, never catching a mouse but willing to endlessly try. Sounds more like torture than toy, actually. But it does get the lazy cat up off the couch.
