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But let’s look at
indoor cats. I have five. All are kept
indoors. If they go out, it is on lead and
in the back yard. The biggest complaints I
hear from owners of indoors exclusively cats are:
scratching, litter box smell and lack of doing
what cats do naturally. Well, the scratching
can be controlled by providing and encouraging the
use of scratching posts. Different surfaces
(carpet, sisal and even wood) as well as tall
enough for the cat to fully stretch and climb –
and laced with catnip – plus training can help
save furniture. That litter box door?
Come into my house, you will notice very little
odor. I cannot stand cat box smells!
I keep the litter boxes in
the utility room. The door is kept closed
and we installed a cat door for access (and keeps
the dogs out of the boxes). I use a clumping
litter and scoop out at least once a day. Each
week, the box gets a total change. Every so
often, the boxes get washed and dried in the sun
and lightly oiled with mineral oil to help cut
down on litter sticking to the plastic. The
boxes are kept on a large indoor/outdoor mat and
if the mat gets dirty or a cat misses the box, the
mat can be taken out and hosed down. Yes,
sounds like a lot of work.
However the
cleaning takes less than three minutes a day for
the daily scooping (six minutes if I have to scoop
twice). The weekly total dumping takes my
husband maybe five minutes. And the occasional
washing can be fit into a schedule – if I am
outside in the yard washing other things, just
grab the boxes as well. Diligence helps cut
down odors greatly.
So, what about
boredom and cats being able to do what they do
naturally like hunt? We can enrich their
lives and let them hunt and pretend to kill in a
safer and controlled manner. Cat toys
can be expensive, so I make my own. A heavy
sock rolled up with some catnip stuffed in it
makes a great mouse! Wood dowels from the
craft store with some bright ribbon tapes to the
end makes a great “fishing pole” for you to
encourage chasing.
Get small cubes or balls
used to insert food in and let the cat have to
work to get a reward. (If you leave food
down all day for your cats, consider using one of
these toys, or if you have multiple cats, a few
balls, and use these to feed the cats from.
This gets them hunting, active and helps burn
calories!). Toilet paper tubes with a treat
stuffed in them and the ends crumpled allow for
scratching and tearing. Cats can hunt safely
inside and have far fewer risks to themselves and
to wildlife than if they hunt outside.
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