‘Enrichment’ means enhancing an animal's environment to encourage natural, species-specific behaviours that help them feel mentally and physically fulfilled. Your cat is a skilled predator with natural instincts to hunt, scratch, climb, chase, solve problems, and explore. Using enrichment in creative ways can help your cat relax, have fun, or build confidence in their home. Enrichment is also a key part of reducing or preventing behaviour problems such as destructive scratching, over-grooming, aggression or attention seeking. Small changes to enrichment can make big differences in your cat’s quality of life.
Set up your house
Creating a cat friendly house can be easy and fun, and prevent undesirable behaviour. Think about what your cat likes to do that may annoy you, such as jumping on the kitchen counter throughout the day, and then think about how you could mimic that in more appropriate ways.
For example, if your cat is jumping on the counter and you don’t want them to, you could try giving them a cat tree near the counter, or a bed somewhere up high in the room, so they can do their important job of supervising dinner time.
Other ways to enrich the space could be:
- Different types of scratching posts and cat trees to get up high
- Scratching post or cardboard scratches to stretch and keep their nails down
- Different types of bedding and cosy sleeping areas such as cat pods
- Cardboard box: it’s a classic on the internet for a reason, cats love a box!
- Cubbies and spaces to hide or jump into
- Different high spaces to climb on
- Things with new smells and textures, like different types of cat safe plants to munch on, especially if your cat likes chewing on your favourite pot plant
- Bring in different items from outside such as branches and leaves to sniff and play with
- A drinking fountain
- ‘Cat TV’ on a screen, such as wildlife videos
Other enrichment ideas:
- Giving them an enclosed outdoor ‘catio’ to sunbathe in
- Harness training and taking them for walks outside
Providing a variety of enrichment and regularly changing or rotating items will help keep your cat's environment interesting and encourage them to express their natural behaviours every day. Work out what your cat enjoys most!
Did you know that cats are territorial animals?
That means they like their own space, litter box, resting zones, and perch. If you have more than one cat, you’re going to need to give everyone a good spot. If it’s a spot they argue about - duplicate it to reduce tension in the home.
Maximising mealtime
Feeding your cat in different and interesting ways can help keep their brain busy and help them feel like the wild hunters they are (safely). If your cat never seems interested dinner time or is a bit bored and restless, try some of these:
Try feeding your cat their dinner by:
- Hiding it around their favourite spots to sniff and hunt
- Putting it in a food dispensing toy like a treat ball, so it falls out when tapped and rolled
- Putting food on a lick mat
- Using it as a reward when clicker training a trick
- Changing up their food by giving them different treats to try
- Hiding their kibble in a box with toilet rolls to get them to forage and hunt it out
Start easy then slowly build up difficulty! It’s okay to go slow and help your cat build confidence.
Play with your cat!
Play is an important part of your cat's daily routine. It gives them an opportunity to express their natural hunting instincts, provides physical exercise, and helps prevent boredom. Playing with your cat can also help you read their body language, and strengthen your relationship.
When playing, some cats love to watch and anticipate the hunt, while others love to grab, bite and kick. Find what your cat enjoys. Cats are great at making their own toys such as a scrunched up paper ball they found on the floor, or the classic ball of string.
Toys such as a feather wand can be a great interactive game for your cat. Observe what they enjoy and how they play. Rotate your cat toys and help them ‘catch’ and possess their toys - an important part of the predatory sequence.
Play time can be short, even just a few minutes a day, and still be excellent for your cat’s mental and physical health. Younger cats usually need longer and more frequent play times.
Disclaimer:
Be mindful when you train and interact with your pet to avoid all aversive & balanced training techniques. When animals are hurt and scared, they may stop the behaviour but they won’t learn the right thing to do.
Aversive training consists of: yelling/scaring pets, leash jerking, hitting, using choke collars, e-collars, prong collars or slip leads, using water such as spraying cats,
Force-free training focuses on positive reinforcement which promotes trust, confidence and consistent behaviour with our causing harm or stress to our pets. This is the most up to date, science backed Humane method of training.
