How to Keep Your Cat Active: Simple Tips for a Healthy Lifestyle​

Hello cat lover and parent,

Greeting from Care Kitties Team. Don’t we want our cat to be active, playful and remain healthy and fit? But as an indoor cat, it is often tough for the cats to remain active and playful as their natural instincts are being suppressed sometimes. You can compare it with humans. People who do corporate works and do not do regular exercise often are not fit enough. The same is with cats. That is why it is important for us to take the initiative and try to make our more active if it is not active enough. So, in today’s email we will share you the comprehensive guide of how to properly make your cat be more active and playful.

Step1: Establish a Consistent Play Routine

• Designate Specific Play Times: Play with your cat every day as part of his or her schedule. The best duration of training sessions is in the morning and in the evening, preferably in the hours of dawn and dusk. These habits are useful since they assist in creating a routine that is beneficial to you and the cat.

• Use a Variety of Toys: Provide a mix of toys that will fit different play personalities. Teach them toys that look like prey, such as feathers or laser pointers, toys with which the cat can hit and chase, and even soft toys for the cat to kick or wrestle. These toys should be frequently changed overtime, maybe after every 3 days for cats to express the usual excitement each time they play.

• Engage in Different Types of Play: Vary the activities during the play so that the cat would not get bored. Vary between chasing toys (for instance, chasing a laser light) and pouncing toys (such as using feathers) and running through obstacles (like jumping over humps).

Step2: Stimulate your cat’s natural hunting instincts

• Introduce Food Puzzles and Interactive Feeders: Since cats are natural hunters, food puzzles and interactive feeders are ideal to gauge this instinct. These gadgets ensure that your cat has to earn their meals, which not only keeps them mentally engaged but also physically active. There is always the option of purchasing commercial puzzles or making a new set on your own using ordinary items.

• Practice Treat Hunting: Put food in different parts of the house to make it look like the cat has to search for food on its own using its sense of smell and feline curiosity. Familiar places should be chosen first, after which one moves to a more challenging area within the house in order to provide the cat with an exciting experience.

Step3: Raise the Quality of Your Home Environment for Activity

• Install Climbing Structures: Cats are very playful animals, and they especially like to jump and explore heights. Balls that perch on the windows, shelves and cat trees offer numerous heights in terms of climbing and jumping options. This is especially advantageous when you are living in small houses or apartments where floor space is rather confined.

• Encourage Scratching and Stretching: Make sure to have more than one scratching area or post or pad within your own dwelling. Cat scratching posts should be as tall as the cat; the cat needs to be able to extend fully in order to use the scratcher. This not only helps them to exercise but also their instinct that they require to itch.

• Provide Visual Stimulation: Place bird feeders near windows or use cat-friendly videos or DVDs. The movement and sounds will keep them visually engaged, and this is the time when they should go for their natural hunting instinct.

Step4: Increase social interaction for play and socialization

• Dedicate Time for Interactive Play: It is vital that you set some time in any given day that you will spend time playing with your cat. Opt for toys that demand your attention, like pendant toys or the laser pointers. This not only makes your cat active but also helps to improve your friendship level with your beloved cat.

• Consider Getting a Companion Cat: If your cat loves the company of other cats, it is good that you introduce another cat into your home. A companion can offer interaction to prevent boredom and stimulate the natural instincts to play, such as fighting.

Step5: Integrating movement with the day-to-day activities

• Make Feeding Time Active: Make feeding time an activity by putting the food in a puzzle feeder or throwing kibble over the room. It might control your cat’s diet of food but also ensure that the cat has to ‘work’ to get food, which is good for its health since it gives the cat both a workout and a puzzle to solve.

• Teach Simple Commands or Tricks: Teach your cat a few moves, such as sitting, waving its paw or coming when called. Cats are intelligent animals that respond well to commands and can even be trained to sit, wave or come when called; you just may have to lure them into it with treats. This may prove to be a simple yet entertaining and enjoyable pastime for your pet, as well as providing him with a stimulating experience in terms of play and movement.

Step6: Manage Diet and Nutrition for Optimal Activity

• Feed a Balanced Diet: Feed your cat right in its age, weight and health condition because the feeding will determine their overall health. Eating well-balanced meals that meet the cat’s dietary requirements contributes to a good body size and thus an active cat.

• Use Food as Motivation: Reward your pet with small and healthy snacks during the playtime or training. It can make the cat participate more enthusiastically in the various forms of exercise.

Step 7: Provide safe outdoor opportunities

• Harness Training for Outdoor Walks: Teach your cat how to wear a harness and leash in order for you both to exercise outdoors on a leash. Read this article to learn how to harness train your cat. 

• Build or Buy a “Catio”: A “catio” is a safe area outside that you can provide for your cat as a way to give him/her the experience of being outside without having to worry about the cat getting lost or attacked by predators. This space ensures the provision of fresh air, natural light, birds, insect and other outdoor activities that are essential to the health of the mind and the body.

Step8: Monitor health and address potential issues

• Schedule Regular Vet Visits: Consistent veterinary checkups allow the identification of such hidden diseases that may limit the activity of your cat, like arthritis or obesity. It can be treated since the signs are detected in their early stages, hence preventing the advancement of the condition.

• Maintain a Healthy Weight: Consult your veterinarian about the ideal weight that you want your cat to achieve. A healthy diet and consistent exercise are part of the solution to reducing the threat of obesity and related disorders that can deter your cat from exercising or even impair his or her capacity to do so.

That’s it for today we will be back again soon with more helpful tricks and tips to make your cat parenting easy.

Thanks, Abid

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