Enrichment Ideas for Your Cat
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Cats are amazing and intelligent animals. Their lifestyle reflects the predatory skills and behaviors required to hunt food in the wild. Among other things, cat days include the need to rest, hunt, chase, raid, kill, play, eat, and groom. If we don't give them a chance to do these things, they'll get bored. Boredom can lead to various problems such as: B. Destructive behavior, aggression, fear, etc. We all want our cats to have the best life possible!
What is enrichment?
Cats need opportunities to express their natural behavior. Enriched environments should provide different types of scratching areas, opportunities for prey and prey behavior, safe spaces, and respect all five of the cat's senses, providing an environment in which the animal can diversify, choose, and control its daily activities.
The benefits of enrichment?
- Provides needed mental and physical stimulation
- reduce stress and boredom
- reduce unwanted behavior
- Improve overall quality of life
- How do you enrich your cat?
- food-based fortification
Food puzzles help slow down eating, prevent boredom and obesity, and allow cats to eat instinctively by foraging and "hunting" food. You can buy several cat food dispensing toys or even make your own. Start with an easy puzzle and work your way through harder puzzles based on your cat's preferences.
Paper Bags/Paper Lunch Bags: Put catnip, catnip-covered toy mice, or treats inside. You can explore, raid and kill (destroy bags). It's a great hiding place and a fun toy at the same time.
Paper Towel Roll Puzzle: Cut a paper towel roll in half, tuck the ends and cut a few small to large holes for the treats. When cats start using these more, cut small holes for more fun with cats!
Water Bottle Puzzle Toy: Empty water bottle, unpack, cut a few small to large holes to open or close the lid to increase the difficulty of the educational toy
sensory richness
Scent signals are an important part of cat communication and exploration. Cats exposed to the new scent were more active and curious. Pheromones like catnip, silver vine, cat grass, safe houseplants, owner scent toys and Feliway encourage exploration and play. Putting a small amount of scent in paper toy balls, boxes, bags, etc. can provide sensory enrichment.
Visual: Some examples of visual enrichment are interactive cat toys, bird feeders, cat videos on YouTube, soap bubbles, and windmills. Remember, if you play these videos or let your kitten watch birds, do so only for a short period of time to avoid frustrating your cat.
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