Trader Joe's Advent Calendar for Cats 2025 Review

This year, Trader Joes has a new advent calendar for cats and dogs. I picked up the cat version to try it with my 5 cats.

Trader Joe's Cat Advent Calendar 2025

Beautiful Design

Trader Joes did another great job with the packaging. It's so cute! On the back it lists all the cat's names drawn on the front. They are cats of Trader Joes employees, which is such a cool idea.

One Type of Treat: Salmon

As with their past calendar, the big flaw for me is that there are only one type of treats: Freeze dried salmon which is an upgrade from Salmon and Seaweed from the previous years. They are paw print shaped hard treats. There are limited ingredients: Atlantic Salmon (95%), Ground Sweet Potatoes. Cost: $7.99 (up $1 from previous years).

Trader Joe's describes the advent calendar on their website:

These high-quality snacks are tantalizingly tasty for your beloved pets. As for the doting owners, you’ll find the redesigned packaging to be cute as can be, and you’ll find the price to be a howling-good value.

Each box has 4 treats

Unlike the last calendar which had 5 treats for each day (perfect for my 5 cats), this one is down to 4 treats in a sealed packed for each day. The paw print design on the treat is a cute touch. I don't remember that from the previous version.

How did my Cats respond?

Not one cat ate the treat, at least right away.

I wasn't surprised when Josh or Luke didn't eat the treat since they are more particular. But I was surprised that neither Oscar or Maya would try it. Those two like to try new things and will often eat just about anything. Lily is more of a wild card, but she wouldn't try it either. What I discovered was the treats did disappear later, so one cat or cats did eventually eat them, but I was not there to witness it. If I had to guess, I would say Maya eventually ate at least some of the treats since she really is the least picky cat I've ever had. Maybe Oscar too. He has a hard time resisting food, even if he's less than thrilled.

With the last Trader Joes advent calendar, Maya ate the treat immediately. Oscar took a little while, but he did eventually eat it. The rest wouldn't eat it.

Oscar smelled the treat, but then looked up to me. I'm reading this expression as not impressed.

Luke liked the opening where the treats were, maybe hoping to find an alternative.

Luke was more interested in the hole in the box, than the treats themselves.

I put a treat on Lily's perch. She smelled it, but was not interested in eating it.

Conclusion

Trader Joes came up with another beautiful design for their Cat Advent Calendar, but none of my 5 cats were excited about the treats. If your cat loves salmon, this might be a good fit. I'd love to see more variety of treats in the calendar. If your cat loves chicken, you might try the dog version which is just freeze dried chicken. Overall, this is hard for me to recommend. Cats don't need the fancy box. Creating your own advent calendar with things you know your cats love might be a better option. Although more labor intensive, I created my own Cat Advent Calendar.

Check out my Favorite Products for more recommendations.

About the author: Jennifer Van de Kieft, CAFTP, FFCP, PNCC is located in Brooklyn, NY. She is certified in feline behavior and pet nutrition. She owns Cat Advocate, a feline behavior consulting company. She provides cat guardians with the strategies, tools and knowledge needed to address their cat's behavior issues. Jennifer provides virtual consultations throughout the United States.