Mary Allen
Many of us use the turn of the year to implement good resolutions. Getting rid of annoying habits or useful things that we put off for a while or started half-heartedly are carried over into the new year as “good resolutions”. We often start highly motivated and then let the resolutions slide again. In this article, we would like to give you a few ideas and tips for good resolutions for cat owners so that you can start the new year off on the right foot for your cat too – and keep it going.
Action Babe! – Get Out of Boredom
Be honest: most (indoor) cats lead a rather boring life. Day in, day out, the same routine with a play unit in the evening, which your cat leaves after a short time, apparently bored, and mostly cuddling on the couch. Most velvet paws literally sleep through their lives in our apartments, which is only partly due to their great need for sleep. Rather, it is the lack of species-appropriate employment within our four walls that creates so little incentive that the kitty prefers to make itself comfortable.
The rest and activity rhythm of our mini tigers actually fits very well even for active and busy people. As little snack hunters and eaters, they love multiple activities throughout the day and prefer them to one long play session. So it suits us and the cats if we alternately schedule shorter and longer activity units several times a day and can then spend the end of the day with a clear conscience and the velvet paw at our side on the couch. When playing, you should also pay attention to the prey-like behavior of your toy. No mouse in the world throws itself in front of the cat’s paws, but rather does everything to avoid being discovered and caught by it. This is exactly how the game should be designed so that it remains exciting from their point of view.
Think about playing together with feather feathers and the like, as well as activities that you can prepare for your cat and which she can then do on her own, such as fumbling boards. You can make these yourself with yogurt cups, egg cartons, used toilet paper rolls, etc., and thus always provide variety. Write down your ideas on a piece of paper and write what fits best into your everyday life at which times. Fiddle boards, food games, and the like should bridge times when you are not actively available for your cat – either before work or before you go to sleep. Keep rotating the activity and the places you offer it to keep your cat entertained.
Ideally, you can link joint activities to your own everyday life. Be sure to take your own needs into account. If you’re not a morning person, it makes little sense to plan a distinct game unit before work. You probably wouldn’t be able to hold out well if things got stressful again. Then maybe a 3-5 minute clicker session after your first coffee is something that suits you better. Before you leave the house, layout a feeding course and place a dining chair with a suspended ceiling in the middle of the hallway to give your cat new input. Integrate this routine into your day – like brushing your teeth or showering every day, so that it eventually becomes a common habit.
Get to the Bacon – Bye-Bye Moppelkatze
If you now integrate your cat (even) more into your everyday life with varied exercise, this is just as good a starting point for a small weight loss program, should your mini tiger turn into a little Garfield over time and have a little too much fat on his hips. Here, too, the following applies: rather frequent, small amounts of food are in line with the natural physiology and help to avoid a feeling of hunger. Be sure to pay attention to the total daily amount, because this should not exceed the calorie consumption of your cat, especially if there are many small meals. A small portion every four to six hours (including at night) comes closest to cats’ natural needs. This includes rewards in the course of clicker training as well as finding the food rewards in the apartment course. In general: your cat is welcome to do something for its food and munch on as little as possible in the (boring) bowl.
A Sense of Proportion – a Bad Guide
Especially with dry food, we very often misjudge the required daily amount. The chunks are heavily compressed and, despite being sufficient, have far too little effect in the bowl of your eternally hungry cat. Depending on the value of the feed, it is only one shot glass a day that she should nibble according to her figure. Therefore, weigh the daily ration and fill it into a small can, which you will eventually use to divide up the portions. So you can be sure that only the required daily amount ends up in the bowl.
However, you should never put your mini tiger on a zero diet. This diet method is controversial for us humans – it could be life-threatening for your cat. Your body is not made for prolonged starvation. On the contrary: if your cat does not eat anything for a long period of time, there is a risk of life-threatening metabolic disease: hepatic lipidosis. Unfortunately, this danger varies from cat to cat – especially the somewhat corpulent ones tend to develop this disease early. In order to rule out this risk for your cat, it is essential that you continue to provide it with small amounts of food and weigh the animal weekly on small animal or baby scales (they are significantly more accurate than our human scales). You don’t want your cat to lose more than 1% to 2% of its body weight per week, even on the strictest diet – and the plumper your cat is, the slower it should be!
Good Resolutions for Cat Owners: Good Things Take Time
As with all resolutions, the same applies here: less is more! Don’t take on too much with your cat at the turn of the year, but rather set yourself small milestones that you can easily achieve together – and persevere with. Write down your successes as well as minor setbacks in a notebook or on a whiteboard. Glued-in photos of your (decreasing) cat let you look back on your joint successes at the turn of the year.