Overall it’s a great interactive toy that both of my 3 year old cats play with daily. That said, here are some important things to keep in mind:
*The ball is electronic and charges with an included micro USB to USB cable, but you have to supply the charging block (I use a low voltage iPhone charger). As the ball will take ‘naps’ when your cat is not interacting with it, it can work for several hours (starting from a full charge) before it’ll need to be recharged, which takes between a 1/2 to 1 hour or so. It has an on/off button, so if your cats take a break, you can turn it off to conserve the battery life.
*It has several different colored lights that encircle the ball and identify what mode it’s in - blue/normal-run, red/spin & jump, yellow/rest, and purple/turning on-off. If there are no moving lights at all, then it’s time to charge it.
*If you have a lot of open smooth flooring like tile, wood, vinyl plank etc., Cheerble will work great. If you have any carpeting or rugs, eventually it’ll get stuck. Even a bath mat or fluffy litter mat will trap it. It isn’t self-extricating (although it’ll try), you’ll have to free it manually.
*If you have wall-to-wall carpeting…Do Not buy this, it won’t work - it even gets stuck on my short-pile area rug.
*I turn the Cheerble off and hide it in a drawer when my cats aren’t playing with it - this way they see it as a special toy and get excited each time I take it out for playtime.
*This ball is noisy, ie Loud. You wouldn’t want to leave it turned on at night. It rolls full force into walls and any other objects that may be in its way. When it hits something, it will redirect itself and go in another direction until it’s free again. The up side of the noise is that if you realize that it’s ‘too quiet,’ then you know it’s time to go find where it’s gotten itself stuck and free it to roll again :)
*This is a toy for CATS. It’s too big for them to swallow, and even if they manage to pick it up in their mouths, they can’t chomp on it.
**This toy would be a choking hazard even for small dogs. They could crush it and swallow the pieces. There are plenty of other, appropriate toys for dogs of all sizes. Please don’t take unnecessary chances, buy one of those for your dog.