Indoor Cat Stimulation

By Fred Foster – March 13, 2022
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Cats love to be indoors but it is nevertheless important to be stimulated even when they are hanging out inside your home. How do you keep your cat happy and stimulated? Here you can find the best tips and tricks to keep your cat purring all day long and content in your home.

 

Indoors Cat Stimulation

Cats love to be indoors, but it is nevertheless essential to be stimulated even when they are hanging out inside your home. How do you keep your cat happy and stimulated? Here you can find the best tips and tricks to keep your cat purring all day long and content in your home.

Indoor Play

Interactive playing is crucial for cats while indoors. Interactive play is deemed best for cats because it is during this that they can practice their preying skills. It is important to play with your cate for a minimum of 10 minutes each day, especially if they are young kittens. Kittens are rowdier than older cats especially and can use this time to get out all their energies.

Toys that your cats can play with indoors that mimic the actions of animals in which your cat preys like birds and are good for keeping your cat sharp. Wand-like toys are especially beneficial for this and enhance a cat’s speed when it comes to prey that tries to dart away from them. You can make the game even more interesting by attaching a treat for your cat at the end of their wand toy.

Scratching Posts

Cat’s use scratching posts not only for exercise but also to destress and mark their area. If your cat doesn’t have their own post, it can cause a rise in their stress level and promote negative behaviors such as aggression and other damaging habits. 

What makes a good scratching post? Here are some basic elements to keep in mind:

1. Well-built and stable
2. Tall enough so that your cat can fully stretch and run their body alongside it.
3. A post of material that doesn’t catch on your cat’s claws and damage them as well as material that is satisfying for your cat’s needs.

Food Hunt

Your cat is a hunter at heart, so let them work for their food. In addition to attaching a treat to their wand toys and making them chase after it improving their instincts, you can also hide treats around the house for your cat to discover throughout the day. This allows your cat to hunt for their food even when you aren’t around. As a result, your cat not only gets to hunt but also gets their daily exercise in the process.

As a cat owner, you can also put their food in a puzzle toy where it is more challenging for your cat to get their food out of. You can get a variety of these types of toys at your local pet store or even make your own by cutting holes in the lid of a tupperware box filled with food. Just make sure you burn the edges of the cutouts not to injure your cat.

Frequently Introduce Toys



Ultimately like all of us, cats get bored with the same things, so it is vital to constantly introduce new toys constantly. You can manage this by keeping a box of toys in your home that your cat doesn’t have access to and pull out new toys every so often for your cat to play with. You can swap these toys in rotation so that your cat doesn’t get sick of them. Make sure that your cat doesn’t view a toy as “dead” like their prey because if it starts to move again, they no longer will be stimulated by them in the same way. When leaving toys for your cat, it is also important to make sure your cat cannot get intertwined with their toy unsupervised.

A pro tip for cat owners for when your cat does lose interest in a toy is to spray them with catnip. This method can make old toys feel like new ones, promoting new enticement. Nevertheless, this does not replace the benefits of constantly introducing new and improved toys to your cat and incorporating them into your cat’s routine.

Utilize Your Space

If your cat is staying indoors for the majority of their time it is crucial to utilize your home’s space. It is recommended to have hiding spots for your cat for the purpose of allowing your cat to hide and yet see exactly what is going on in your home.

Cats like to feel invisible and also hang high in order to observe without being noticed. This is one of the reasons tall scratching posts and towers are something cats love. Tall spaces in your home can also suffice, so remember to keep surfaces like tall shelves clear so your cat can enjoy.

Home Away Entertainment

Even your you aren’t home, your cat still needs to remain stimulated. This is where automated cat toys can come in handy. Not only can these toys dispense treats to your cat when you aren’t there they also promote exercise. They can be turned on according to when you wish via a pre-set timer.

Keeping a cat tree or tower near a visible window allows your cat to look at what is going on outside too. It is especially entertaining to your cat if they can see a bird feeder in their eye line as they look out from your home’s window. It is important to keep in mind that the bird feeder still needs to be out of reach of your cat as to not startle the birds.

Contained Outdoor Space

If your cat does like to venture outdoors on occasion, then an enclosed outdoor space is perfect. This contained space makes going outdoors much safer for your cat and can further stimulate them while they are still technically indoors. This is a great alternative to simply letting your cat roam free in your backyard since they can easily jump your gate in most instances or be jumped by threats and animals lurking around. 

 

No matter what kind of stimulation you decide to introduce to your cat, make sure to listen to their needs and observe their already developing habits to make sure that their needs both indoors and outdoors are genuinely met. These observations are key to giving your cat the happiest and most stimulated life within your home. 

 

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