The turbo scratcher is simply a plastic circular base with a ball that rolls around the track on the outer edge. It has cardboard corrugating medium as a clawing area on the inner part of the circle. It is very simple, yet highly effective.
I don’t know why, but this has been a success with every cat — young and old — that I have seen around it (15 different cats). Once they get the ball moving, it really flies around the track! The younger cats manage to pull the ball out of it within 10 minutes, but they have a blast in those ten minutes. The smartest cats realize that it is more fun when it does stay in the track, though. A word of advice: don’t put this in or near your bedroom. If your cat feigns disinterest when you first bring it home, watch out if you are a light sleeper — a couple of hours into sleep you will wake with a start to the sound of the ball whipping around the track over and over and over again.
The two 14-year old cats that I currently reside with love this thing. They aren’t usually interested in toys (in our presence), but did manage a very disinterested tapping of the turbo ball if they were sitting on the mat anyway. These senior cats’ main interests in the Turbo Scratcher are 1) using it as a meditation/sleeping spot — it is so much more sophisticated than sitting ON the floor, and 2) actually scratching it (and these two are declawed!).
The fact that the ball comes out of the track so easily is a small disappointment (granted the cats do have to grab it with both paws to pull it out). You can easily pop the ball back into place, but some of us have too many places that the cats can hide such a small item.
Besides that, after 4 years, all our cats still use it daily. As a toy, well, its success may depend on the age and personality of the cat. As a scratching post, however, it is the only one I have ever bought that all the cats consistently used as such (though they do still get use out of the couch, too). I have been a “cat caretaker” for many many years so I do have some experience with several different types of scratching posts and this is by far the best.

I’ve been using the TurboScratcher since it came out in the early 80s as a toy and scratching item for my cats. I have NEVER paid for than about -13 for it, and the inserts used to be available from WalMart for 3/. The catnip helps get the attention for the scratching part, and once the see how much fun it is to scratch, they rarely go back to carpet or furniture. I’ve had more than one cat that never ONCE went for furniture because I made sure he/she had her own turbo-scratcher from the moment they arrived in my house. I have one that is a light blue from back in the 80s when everything was light blue and mauve. If left in the sun a bit too long, they do tend to get a little brittle, but while they feel a little flimsy, they are perfect for the cats. For those without carpet — use the rubber shelf or drawer liner cut in a square or circle a couple of inches bigger than the whole toy and it doesn’t move at all. I have never had any problem on any surface until I recently moved into a house with handscraped hardwood floors that are uneven. This trick worked wonders there and I suspect it would have been more stable on the tile floor in our last house as well, but our cat like to sleep on it in the window in the sun just as much as playing or scratching it. I recommend one to any cat that I adopt out at rescue, and for my foster babies, I give one to the family that adopts them because that’s what I teach them to scratch on and I don’t want them developing bad habits of scratching furniture or carpet in their new home — where they are often trying to cope with the unfamiliar. I’ve been told by my adoptive families that this was a really great thing to send esp since it was familiar and they were surprised at how much it was used. Before replacing the cardboard circle, make sure you turn it over and use both sides! if they seem a little bored and you are out of catnip, just pic up a little bag of it and it will totally get their attention again.

Customer Video Review Length:: 1:27 Mins

It’s taken our 9-week old male kitten quite a few days to learn how to fully enjoy his new Turbo Scratcher, but it is well worth it! In the beginning he found it very entertaining to watch and he would come running whenever we moved the ball around. We’ve had to help him learn how to move the ball on his own, gently grabbing his paws and pushing the ball for him; now he’s finally started to use it on his own and plays with it until he’s wiped out. He still hasn’t figured out that he can scratch the middle part, but we figure he’ll learn soon now that he’s started to play with it and using his claws on the ball.

Plus, it’s just darn entertaining for us to watch him play with it and scoot himself along the track!