Review of Cat Toy: Ripple Rug

What is a Ripple Rug cat toy? According to the company’s website description “It’s the flippity floppity rug that cats and kittens love” and “it’s a playspace, a bed, a scratching pad and a safe place for your kitty to hide”.

As a purchaser of my own Ripple Rug, I have to agree these are pretty accurate descriptions of how my own fluffy orange kitty uses his. He loves to play in it, sometimes sleeps, and being a fairly confident kitty tends to hide in it more during playtime than as a place of safety.

SnugglyCat Inc. was founded by husband and wife team Fred and Natasha Ruckel, inspired by their cat Yoda. In 2015 they began a Kickstarter campaign for the Ripple Rug idea. And it’s grown since then. It’s important to them that they produce quality products, made with environmentally-friendly materials and processes, made in American factories where the conditions of the workers meet high-standards. They also donate Ripple Rugs to nominated no-kill non-profit cat shelters.

A Ripple Rug is made up of two 47″ x 35″ rugs (bottom and top). The bottom rug is a solid piece with a non-slip backing. The top rug has 14 various size holes with slits (allowing expansion for bigger cats), and has several Touch-Points of hook-tape.

Here are the specs according to ripplerug.com, divided by my own categories:

Review of my own Ripple Rug purchase and experience:

In all honesty, the first time I came across the Ripple Rug online I thought it definitely looked like the type of toy my fluffy orange kitty would play in…but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the money on what appeared to be a pretty simple piece of carpet with holes cut in it. I admit at that point I hadn’t taken the time to really read about all the specs (listed above).

My Ripple Rug purchase

Months passed, and then as Christmas 2023 approached, I took the time to research the Ripple Rug and was sold that this would be the perfect Christmas gift to my special kitty this holiday. After reading the specs it seemed like a deal. I purchased directly from the Ripple Rug website and paid $44 plus free shipping. I chose the beige, similar to the carpet in the house and also hides orange kitty’s shed hair.

Bonus, it came in this super cute bag that I put directly under the Christmas tree with no need to wrap or label who it was to!

Christmas morning I opened and set it up, and fluffy orange kitty played in his new fort.

Ripple Rug is good for sleeping

Fluffy orange kitty also enjoys laying and sleeping on top of it. In fact one of the reasons I knew he would love the Ripple Rug is because every time I moved the kitchen rug into the living room (in order to mop), I would just drop it in a pile on the floor and he would come and lay in between the folds. Something about the rug folds appeals to him, which makes this toy perfect.

Ripple Rug is good for playing

His favorite game is when I roll jingle balls for him. The way this works is he hides in his Ripple Rug kitty fort, and I roll jingle balls past, and he rushed out and chases or races them.

Sometimes he’ll play by himself, pouncing on jingle balls that are under the top rug. And of course sometimes when he’s inside I dangle toys by the holes for him to grab at.

So there’s various games to be played with it, which I like because it helps keep it interesting for him. I’ve also found that by incorporating cardboard boxes I can set up the Ripple Rug into even more kitty fort configurations, so that this play area is ever changing and kept stimulating for him. I try and re-arrange this play area about once a week, when I vacuum.

Ripple Rug is well made

Vacuuming regularly has done a good job of picking up cat hair and claw sheaths, keeping it looking pretty new. It’s holding up well, and nothing is coming apart.

Cleaning the Ripple Rug

After nine months my Ripple Rug wasn’t as stiff as originally, plus it was time for a wash (although not visibly dirty) to remove cat-fur oils. Per the instructions, I washed it in the bathtub with dish soap and hung it outside to dry. It was easy and dried fast.

I admit that I was a little disappointed it hadn’t returned to the near original stiffness. It was a little stiffer compared to before washing.

In the interest of curiosity and research I tried the instructions for further stiffening by ironing. Because I don’t even like to iron my clothes, it sounded like a lot of work. But actually it wasn’t bad: I just listened to a podcast while (per the instructions) I placed the iron on the rug and let it sit in place for nearly a minute and then moved it to another spot and repeated. I didn’t iron every square inch, but easily did the majority. This process did increase the stiffness some more.

Ripple Rug claims that you can stiffen the top rug, but my experience was not as I’d hoped. However, they do stress that the instructions need to be followed, and I may have erred a bit; after nine months maybe there was a lot more kitty oil on the rug than I thought and I was too conservative with the soap and didn’t clean it as thoroughly as needed. Next time I wash it I’ll use more soap and see how it turns out.

When I set it up (now clean), my fluffy orange kitty tackled a jingle ball that was inside and promptly flattened the rug. He doesn’t really care how stiff or soft it is – he’s still going to play with it.

Ripple Rug website

I like that the website is very thorough: any questions you have about the company/manufacture/ripple rug are answered on the website. This is great because not all companies offer this leave of detailed information about their products; I appreciate SnugglyCat’s openness. I like to make informed purchases.

I do feel the website could benefit from a bit more organization. There’s a lot of info. Even I didn’t read everything before I made my purchase; it was in the course of writing this review that I was more thorough and learned a few more details that I’d been unaware of. When I wanted to re-read something, it wasn’t obvious (even with the page titles) where I’d read it and took a bit of hunting to find again. Most people probably aren’t going to read the complete website, and the good news is it’s easy to quickly learn a lot about the ripple rug from just a couple pages.

And you don’t have to read the entire website. When you purchase a Ripple Rug, it includes detailed (not complicated, just thorough and explanative) instructions on how to shape and care for it, making for an easy reference when you decide it’s time to give it a wash and re-stiffen.

My Conclusion

I conclude that the Ripple Rug was worth the money because it’s a purchase I feel good about, all around. The reason to buy any cat toy is based on how much entertainment kitty will get from it, and for the Ripple Rug the enrichment value has been very good; it’s so versatile. Fluffy orange kitty can play or sleep in or on it. Sometimes he plays by himself, sometimes I play with him.

It’s been easy to care for and is holding up well. Periodic washing will keep it looking good.

And I very much appreciate that it’s made in the USA. This is the type of business I like to support.