Laugh. Learn. Love cats.
For much of the United States, the Memorial Day holiday weekend is the sign of the beginning of the summer season.
In some families, it is traditional to take flowers to the graves of their loved ones, and in other families, traditions involve taking advantage of the warm weather with cookouts or trips to the beach or other watering hole.
Whatever you do to celebrate, we hope you have a safe and happy holiday!
Our pampered, indoor cats two linked problems: obesity and boredom. The little tigers that are our housecats are biologically adapted to hunt for their small meals. Yet they’re living lives of luxury where they can nap on the sofa all day and then wander over to their bowl of all-you-can-eat kibble without making any more effort than walking across the room.
Is there any wonder over half of housecats today are overweight or obese?
A great way to stimulate your cat’s need to hunt and to also give your cat a little exercise while hunting their treats or kibble is using a puzzle feeder. It provides your cat both mental stimulation and exercise while doing something they have to do everyday: eat.
We don’t feed kibble at our house, but there are no kitties around here who will pass up treats. So when our I talked to our friends at Kruuse at Global Pet Expo about cat enrichment, I realized they got how enrichment and treat time could be put together. They offered to let us try some of their treat enrichment toys.
One things that really impressed me at Global Pet Expo was the Kruuse Catrine Catmosphere treat dispensing ball.
One thing you can’t tell from photos is how sturdy the ball is. My cats have actually split treat toys open in the past, so having one that is durable is a must. It’s also easy to adjust, with a little chrome collar that turns around the pink core insert that dispenses the treats. You can turn it so that it is wide open, allowing treats to fall out easily, or you can turn it to make the hole smaller so that your cat has to work harder to get the tasty stuff out. More work means more exercise, so it’s great that you can gradually build up to your cat playing for longer and longer lengths of time with it.
The unique design of the Catmosphere means that the pink core is actually open all the way down to the opening. Ashton could tell that the treats came out that way, and she tried digging them out with her paw at first. She’s the kind of cat who will try to get at the treats with the least effort necessary.
When the paw thing didn’t work out as well as she had hoped, she started to really bat it around. It’s hard to say whether being able to see the treats flying around inside the Catmosphere treat ball was an added attraction for her since she isn’t a very visual cat. She relies a lot on her other senses since her single eye tends to make her less interested in watching prey. But regular cats who are visual hunters can see the treats in there and that is an added incentive to bat it around.
One of the other great things about the Catmosphere is that Ashton will continue to play with it for a while after it is empty. This may be tied into her not actually looking through the clear side of the ball to see if it still has any goodies inside, but that’s five minutes of play and exercise she got that she wouldn’t have any other way. She seemed to really like the wobbling, uneven way it rolled around on the floor, so maybe that was what kept her attention so long once it wasn’t dispensing anything to eat. Either way, seeing a toy stimulate her to exercise when she is so difficult to get to play with so many other toys was great.
When I was talking to the folks from Kruuse at Global Pet Expo, they showed me the Catmosphere treat ball, then they said, “That’s really all we have for cats.” But I spotted something else in their booth that I thought would make a good enrichment toy for cats: a dog food puzzle.
I know there aren’t as many products out there for cats as there are for dogs, especially not as many engaging enrichment toys for food. So thinking outside the box helps a little bit. The mini dog maze is meant for small dogs who are roughly the size of cats to have to work to get their dog food or treats out of the maze. It doesn’t have any moving parts, and it’s made of a sturdy plastic that’s even dishwasher safe.
What happens when you toss some cat treats into a maze intended for dogs to chase their treats? Pierre thought it was fascinating. He spent a long time pushing the treats around in the grooves of the maze. 
The maze loops back on itself several times, making it fairly long, in cat maze length. Eventually, he got impatient and figured out he could fish the treats out mid-maze and flip them onto the floor for consumption. This process, of course, made his paws dirty.
Newton watched the whole process with interest.
When it was his turn, he dug around inside the maze with enthusiasm, dragging it around the floor while he fished out treats one by one. The maze has rubber feet, but they weren’t enough to keep it in place on the smooth tile of our floor when he started digging with both feet. It would probably stay in place better on carpet, but there wasn’t any harm in his moving it around as he played.
Both Newton and Pierre spent a long time with the maze, and I felt better about letting them have treats, knowing they were working some of the extra calories back off again and having fun at it.
When it comes down to it, exercise and activity are the best way to keep the extra weight off your cat, so having active cats who work for their treats (or kibble, if you feed it) is a great way to keep your cat healthy and happy.
FTC Disclosure: We received the Catrine Catmosphere and the Buster Mini Dog Maze from Kruuse in exchange for our honest review. The opinions in this review are my own and not influenced by any outsider. I receive no additional benefits for talking about the product or company.
Bird: * peek *
Newton: Oh, hi, buddy! What are you doing out there?
Bird: Lookin’ for worms. Seen any?
Newton: No, we don’t have any worms in here. There’s an old catnip snake in the toy basket. Is that close enough? I can bring it to you.
Bird: Nope. I don’t need catnip. Just worms.
Newton: Hey, where are you going? Don’t you want to play?
Bird: Nope. I’ve gotta find worms.
Newton: If you wait a minute, I can ask Pierre if we have any worms I don’t know about.
Bird: Nah, I gotta go.
Newton: * sigh * We were going to have so much fun together! Bye, buddy!
Summer and its long, hot days are on their way. You may not think of your cats as being at risk of hyperthermia (heatstroke), but they are wearing a fur coat year round. Helping keep your cat cool on the hottest days of the year is important, especially in kittens and elderly cats.
Give your cat access to rooms with cool things they can lay on. Tile floors, ceramic bathtubs, or even the back of your toilet are places that your cat can stretch out and enjoy the cool surface beneath them.
In our house, we have a sunroom connected to the house by a sliding glass door, and the metal track of the door was a favorite spot for one of our previous cats, Rhett, many years ago. His white paws were often smudgy from the grease in the sliding door track where he would sprawl for comfort on hot days.
You can make an extra cool spot in your house by freezing water in a three-quarters full water bottle (leave room for expansion as the water freezes) and wrapping a towel around it. Use this kind of like you would a heating pad in the winter. Instead, think of it as a cool buddy that your cat can cuddle up to in order to cool off. Don’t forget that this is going to be damp due to condensation, so you will need to either put it somewhere that won’t be damaged by moisture or protect the surface beneath it from moisture.
Make sure your cats have plenty of water, and check the water level often. Warm weather means it evaporates more quickly, and your cats will drink it faster, too, meaning it will need to be refreshed more often than in cooler months. You can add ice cubes to the water to cool it down temporarily. Just be aware that some cats will fish out ice cubes to play with them, so monitor the bowls the first time you do that, especially if your bowl is in an area that the floor could become slippery when wet from melting ice.
Close curtains or blinds to prevent sun from further heating rooms in your house where your cat prefers to sleep during the day. This will also help with your air conditioning bill. This may mean less time for your cat to watch the birds and squirrels outside your window, but the birds and squirrels are probably resting in the heat of the day, too.
Southern and western exposure windows are the ones likely to heat up your house the most. Our sunroom has both south and west-facing windows, and we keep the blinds closed for most of the day in the summer to try to keep cool. In the late afternoon, opening the room’s west-facing blinds can make the temperature jump ten degrees in a few minutes, so keeping that sun out makes a big difference.
Point a fan where your cat can enjoy the breeze it creates. A fan helps humans cool off by evaporating sweat from your skin, and cats don’t sweat all over the way that humans do, only on their paw pads. That means that a fan isn’t quite as efficient for helping cool your cat as it is to cool you, but moving air around your cat that is cooler than her body temperature still helps to draw heat away. If your cat is willing to let you wet her down with a damp washcloth, this effect works even better.
Don’t forget that some fans are easier to tip over than others. If your cat is rambunctious or has climbing tendencies, a fan that sits on the floor is a safer choice than one on a tall pedestal that has a higher center of gravity and could be prone to toppling. Of course, always make sure the fan has a grill over it so that a cat can’t get close to turning blades.
You probably go out for your daily jog in the early morning to avoid the sizzling summer heat, and it’s no different for your cat. Don’t encourage strenuous play in the heat of the day. Playtime is important, and it’s great bonding between cat and human, but it can wait until after the house cools down. Or set your alarm a little early in the morning and have extra play time then.
You may regularly play with your cat until he is panting, but panting is also a sign of heat stress.
Don’t push your cat’s exercise when it’s hot so that you can’t tell one from the other. And if your cat begins to act unusual after summer exercise, with rapid pulse and breathing, redness in his tongue and mouth, lethargy, or if kitty is stumbling after a case of the midday zoomies, don’t assume he’ll be fine. Heat exhaustion signs like those need prompt veterinary followup.
References and further reading:
Heat Stroke in Cats, Pet MD.
How to Keep Your Pets Safe in the Summer Heat, American Humane Association
Creative commons images courtesy flickr/nauright and flickr/barbourians
