A Dozen Key Points on How to Enrich Your Cat's Indoor Environment

by Dr. Ko⁽¹⁷⁵⁾ Red Star

http://cathealthstore.com

How can you ensure that your cat lives a happy, enriched indoor life? By implementing the following steps! Physical health is not the only important aspect of taking good care of your cat; mental well-being is just as essential to providing your cat with a long, rich, fulfilling life.

Indoor cats do not have the same opportunities as outdoor cats do to express their natural instinctive behaviors and experience the same sensory stimuli: hunting, lying hidden underneath the boughs of a tree, listening to the sounds of nature, scratching tree trunks, perching atop branches, marking and defending territory, mating, and so forth.

The main goal of environmental enrichment is to provide indoor cats with surrogate activities and situations that serve as enjoyable outlets for their natural behaviors. As cat owners we derive endless pleasure from the relationships we enjoy with out felines. In return it is our duty to ensure that our kitties also benefit from their domestic lifestyles, not just vice versa. And not just in regard to physical well-being (of which there are many benefits for cats). Despite the fact that their worlds are limited to single households, there are still a plethora of ways with which indoor cats may be kept active, engaged, and mentally stimulated.

? Rotate the toys that are available to your cat every week, keeping most of them in an inaccessible cupboard.

Cats become quickly bored with toys once they are no longer novel, so by rotating toys so that they only see each individual toy once every four to five weeks, the toys become like new again and again!

? Many cats love indulging in catnip toys.

Many catnip toys lose their ‘nip after a period of time, so the best ones are refillable catnip toys.
You can also ‘marinate' regular cat toys in jars or containers of catnip and then give them to your cat for his or her enjoyment!
It is also possible to grow your own catnip plants, and it is not difficult to do. You simply harvest some of the catnip periodically, dry it out, crumble it, place it into a container, and stuff it into refillable catnip toys.

? Spend five to ten minutes gently grooming your cat every day.

Cats often mutually groom one another, and it is an important bonding behavior.
Start by gently brushing under your cat's chin, then its cheeks, and then move to the rest of the body. This will be a relaxing experience for both you and your cat, and will also help decrease the amount of hair that will be shed around the home.

? Place self groomers around the most feline frequented corners of your home – cats love these, and will rub up against them more times over the course of a day than you can count!

? Training your cat

Cats can easily learn a variety of tricks such as ‘sit,' ‘shake paw,' ‘come' and many others, and it provides them with excellent mental stimulation to learn these tricks.
Your cat will also benefit from the added social interaction time with you, along with the positive rewards and attention lavished on them for properly responding to commands.
Use only positive reinforcement to teach your cat the desired behaviors, never ever punish your cat with physical or verbal negative interactions.

? Have cat trees available in more than one room of your house.

Cats enjoy having perches of varying height
Felines are naturally a semi-arboreal species, so providing ‘cat trees' is truly providing them with what they would naturally enjoy doing outdoors
Cats revel in being able to sit and observe situations, and feel that they are at a safe height
Having multiple cat trees with high perches is particularly important in a multiple cat household – cats will get along much better with one another when they have the readily available option to withdraw from the company of their fellow housemates

? Window seats

Similar to how it is important to provide cats with observational perches within the home to observe household happenings, it is just as important to ensure that your cat is able to enjoy the outdoors from a safe place; in other words, cats should have easily accessible window ledges from which they can observe the outdoors on a daily basis.
If window ledges are too narrow for your cat to be able to comfortably sit on them, you can strategically place furniture (such as shelving) around your home so that they have a seat available to them.
You can also purchase cat window seats that you can easily install yourself – they are inexpensive and very effective!
Open your windows to provide your cat with fresh air and unimpeded sounds from the outdoors – just be certain that your window screens are secure and strong before doing so!
Even if you are not planning to enjoy downtime in a particular room, remember to raise the window shades anyhow, so that your kitty can enjoy the view.

? Consider providing safe ways for your cat to enjoy the outdoors

There are many websites that allow you to build safe, esthetically pleasing outdoor cat enclosures, that work for both houses and apartments – the following links are just a few of many such sites:
Cat Fence: Purrfect Cat Enclosures and Cat Fences (www.purrfectfence.com/)
Habitat Haven, The Cat's Den, Outdoor Cat Enclosures (www.habitathaven.com)
Harness and leash walking allows provides fresh air and exercise for the both of you
- This is one of my personal favorites; it never fails to generate funny looks from people, and it never ceases to make me smile when my Freddy asks me for walks at the doorway ro when he comes running excitedly at the sound of his harness jingling!
Cats actually do quite well with leash walking when a body harness is used, rather than a collar and leash, particularly if harness and leash training is started in kittenhood
You can also purchase pet strollers that have a fine mesh and allow cats to be walked by you while enjoying the scenery and feeling safely enclosed in their stroller

? Playmates for your cat

Although it is easiest to ensure that cats will get along well together when they are raised together from an early age, it is still possible to introduce adult cats to one another, or to introduce a kitten to an adult cat.
Unfortunately, even when kittens are raised together, there is never any guarantee that they will sustain a good relationship throughout their lives – cat relationships are quite volatile and are subject to change from seemingly small events and influences.
That said, many cats do get along quite well together, and there are lots of ways you can help ensure a healthy relationship between housemates. Having a playmate helps provide social interaction and affection for your cats when you are at work or out of the home, is a constant play resource, and cats in multiple cat households often get more exercise as well.

? Puzzle feeders and facilitating food foraging and predatory behaviors.

Do NOT free feed your cat (have food constantly available in a bowl), because this makes food boring and facilitates obesity. Obesity will greatly decrease your cat's quality of life.
Leaving a small quantity of healthy treats (e.g. freeze-dried chicken) available in puzzle feeders while away from home during the day, and when in bed overnight - this allows for small feedings at your cat's leisure and will encourage natural foraging/hunting behaviors and exercise. Puzzle feeders are also mentally stimulating.
Another method of having your cat work for their food and which will simulate foraging, is to hide treats around the home that they can spend time searching out through the day.
Also, toss treats across a room or down a hallway so that it becomes a game and your cat can chase and pounce on them is another great way to simulate hunting behavior inside your home.

? Have scratching posts available in the rooms most frequented by your cat

Scratching is a normal cat behavior, and having scratching posts that your cat thoroughly enjoys greatly enhances the pleasure derived from his or her daily routine.
Incline: Some cats prefer a vertical scratching surface, others prefer horizontal, and yet others are partial to a gentle incline.
Substrate: Some cats prefer rope, others carpeting, and some prefer simple $10 cardboard cat scratchers (which, incidentally, are available as flat, horizontal surfaces, and also as ramps of varying inclines)!
Also,remember that not all carpets are made equal … soft, low quality carpet does not provide good durability, and most cats prefer tougher, higher quality carpeting that they can really dig their claws into.
Stability: A solid, wide base is paramount to having a sturdy cat scratching post.

? Daily routines and predictability

Cats are very much creatures of habit, and having certain key routines in their lives helps to provide them with a sense of security.
Events that should have predictability to them include key feeding times, cleaning the litter box(es), grooming your cat, and playing time.
On the flip side of that, it is also important to provide small novelties in their routine as well, to prevent life from becoming boring – these can include a new type of treat, a new cardboard box in the living room to play with, a brand-new toy, or some unexpected cuddle time.

? Avoid disruptive events and sudden changes in your cat's environment

Routinely creating small changes to their environment allows your cat to develop coping mechanisms to deal with change, so that when real change arrives they are not entirely without the skills to deal with it.
Make significant changes incrementally to avoid high levels of stress
For example, if you are moving to a new home, maintain all of your cat's routines as strictly as possible with regards to feeding times, grooming time, etc., and introduce your cat to its new environment slowly.
Start by allowing your cat to live in one room of the home, and provide lots of familiar items to help your cat acclimatize to this new territory. Next, expose your cat to an entire floor of the new home, and then eventually allow your cat to explore the entire house.

If you implement these methods of environmental enrichment for your cat, you should have a content, sociable feline that relishes every minute of every day (of which he or she is awake!). For further reading on this topic, visit "The Indoor Cat Initiative" (now called The Indoor Pet Initiative since its expansion to include other species), a wonderful website created by the veterinary college of Ohio State University.

To read Dr. Ko's article on the www.catdoctorko.com website, click here.

The information provided in this article is for educational reference purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for the advice and care of your veterinarian, nor medical diagnoses or treatments. All questions regarding your cat's health should be discussed with your veterinarian. © 2011 K & J Ventures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Article submitted Tuesday, June 28, 2011 & read 59 times.

Dr. Ko is a licensed Veterinarian who works exclusively with cats. She is a passionate believer in the importance of preventative medicine and educating cat owners about its benefits for their cats. It was this ideal which was the motivation for the creation of the Cat Health Store website - http://cathealthstore.com which is a free information resource and online store for cat owners everywhere!

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