Thinking like a cat - 5 easy ways to enrich your cat’s home life

Cats are significantly more self-sufficient than the vast majority of other domestic pets, particularly their main competition in the popularity stakes, the noble dog! They tend to come and go as they please, are capable of feeding themselves if they have to (or if they get the taste for live prey!) and are happy snoozing away for hours on their own if you go out to work during the day.

For this reason, the day to day care of the cat is not as time-intensive or challenging as caring for a dog, but cats are also rather finicky about what they like and don’t like, and with just a little bit of thought and extra effort, you can make your cat’s home life significantly more rewarding by just making a couple of very minor changes to your house with your cat in mind.

In this article, we will share five easy suggestions for how you can enrich your cat’s home life without making any major changes! Read on to learn more.

Create a cat window

Even if your cat has free access to the outside world and loves to go out and explore, cats also love to be able to keep an eye on what is going on outside from a safe distance too, such as behind a window! If it’s pouring with rain or the outside world is too busy for your cat’s comfort, your cat may prefer to spend some time supervising everything from their favourite windowsill, or watching the birds and the rest of the world go by!

All cats should be able to get up and see out of at least one household window, and many will pick out their favourite spot and turn it into their bed, particularly if the window in question catches the sun!

Because cats like to feel safe and protected and not exposed from behind, small, high up windows such as a hallway window or nook that is not overly large may well be your cat’s spot of choice, particularly if they can get up there with the curtains closed behind them!

Make some high hiding places

All cats like to sit up high, as once more this allows them to keep a weather eye on everything whilst also feeling protected and safe from unexpected approaches! Enabling your cat to do this is important, and this is why many scratching posts and cat activity centres are several feet high.

Investing in one of these high cat climbing frames will probably impress your cat and win you some cat cred, or alternatively, your cat may pick their own spot-but be warned that this may be on top of a wardrobe or somewhere else unexpected!

Keep the food away from water

Cats should have free, unrestricted access to clean, fresh drinking water at all times, and it seems intuitive that the obvious place to put your cat’s water is next to their food bowls. While there is nothing wrong with this per se, and if your home is small you might find it hard to put the water anywhere else, cats do not naturally eat near to their water sources, and so it is more natural to keep the food and water bowls some distance apart, or even in different rooms!

Cats also like running water too, so a water fountain or dripping tap might have a lot of appeal for them as well.

Don’t throw out your cat’s old stuff

Even though cats are very clean animals that are fastidious about their grooming and maintenance, over time, their beds, blankets and favourite spots will become rather grubby and hairy, and you will then be faced with the choice of either attempting to launder them, or throwing them out and replacing them.

While this is in some cases unavoidable, cats don’t like change, and may be rather offended if you bin their favourite bed that they have managed to get just so and that smells of them, and attempt to encourage them to use something new and foreign instead!

Try not to replace your cat’s bedding or other things like ruined scratching posts other than when you absolutely have to, and don’t throw out the old stuff until your cat has had a chance to get used to the new.

Hidden treasure

Cats are naturally inquisitive animals, and all sorts of things will catch their attention and keep them interested throughout the day, and you can help to enable this by hiding hidden treasure throughout the home for your cat to find! The odd cat treat hidden in their favourite blankets or a puzzle toy that decants a treat if your cat works it out can all give your cat a little reward throughout the day, and keep them interested when you are not there to entertain them!