The Cat Friendly Home

Many cat owners are now choosing to keep their cats exclusively indoors. If cats are not stimulated enough by their environment they become bored, and that is when problems can occur. Some cats will groom excessively or eat more than they should leading to obesity. Medical problems such as cystitis become more likely. All cats should have a cat friendly home, but it is particularly important for those who spend all or most of their time indoors.

Natural behaviours
The indoor environment should allow the cat to express natural behaviours. For example, in the wild cats would spend a lot of time hunting for prey, so there should be provisions in the home to allow this type of behaviour. Most cat owners will have some toys such as fur mice, these are a similar size to prey and can stimulate hunting behaviour. However, cats will become bored with toys if they stay in the same place all the time. It is best to change the position of toys or use them in interactive play.

Around two thirds of cats will respond to catnip and this is used in many toys. Dried catnip is generally more potent and some cats will enjoy eating it. Valerian has a calming effect on cats, try giving your cat a valerian teabag (string or staples removed!) – they tend to react in a similar way as with catnip.

Encouraging your cat to forage for food is a great way of relieving boredom. One way of doing this is to purchase a food ball from the pet shop, these have small holes in them and will dispense food when batted around. You can make one of these by sticking two yoghurt pots together and poking holes in them, just make sure there are no sharp edges! Other ideas are to stick toilet roll or kitchen roll tubes together into an interesting shape and placing food in the tubes, or place shredded newspaper in a cardboard box and place food at the bottom.

Scratching posts
Cat posts are great for scratching which is a natural behaviour in cats, they scratch to mark territory and maintain their claws. Most cats like to scratch near doorways or around resources such as food and water bowls so these are ideal places to provide scratching posts. Cats like to stretch to their full height to scratch so tall posts are best. Some cats like to scratch on horizontal surfaces (like doormats!) so a variety of scratching areas should be available.

Sleeping
Most cats will sleep almost anywhere! Cats like to be high up so provide a variety of high resting areas, a tall scratching post with a bed on top is ideal. Warm areas are also favoured by cats and this is why radiator beds are so popular. Cats also like to have safe or private areas in which to rest, some will sleep under the bed or in the wardrobe. It is important not to disturb a cat while they are in their private space – they are there for some quiet alone time!

Resources
For exclusively indoor cats it is important to provide enough resources such as food bowls, water bowls and litter trays. In multi cat households there should be one of these resources for each cat plus one extra, so a house with two cats should ideally have three litter trays.

Grass is essential for cats so if they have no outdoor access some should be provided – special kitty grass can be purchased from most pet shops.