Simple steps can make home more cat friendly

You have heard it said that a man’s home is his castle. Our homes are places of refuge and comfort for us.

But an important question for cat lovers to ask is whether our castle is also a place of refuge and comfort to our cats, who share that living space with us.

Cats can’t walk into a furniture store and pick the comfortable couch of their choice, and if they are indoor-only cats, they don’t even have the choice to leave, if the environment they live in all the time doesn’t suit them.

And it turns out that having a living space that gives them what they need is not just an issue of kindness and respect. It can be a medical issue as well.

In the past, animals in zoos were kept in barren, boring cages, and many developed physical and behavioral problems as a result. But the environmental enrichment movement in zoos designed living spaces that suited the environmental needs of different captive species, and zoo animals are much healthier and happier as a result.

We can apply these same principles to our house cats as well.

Cats evolved as small desert predators. When moving into the human world, the domestic cat did not leave behind the needs that evolved in the natural environment.

Because they are predators, they have a need for mental stimulation. However, because they are small enough to also be prey of larger predators, they have a need for safe hiding places, safe places to sleep and places where they can see and not be seen.

While we tend to think in terms of floor space; they also need vertical spaces. And it is a basic biological need of all cat species to claw-rake their claws on vertical and horizontal objects in their home range.

This claw-raking serves numerous functions, such as social signaling, stress reduction, stretching and limbering muscles, and conditioning the claws.

All of these things need to be in cats’ environment for them to be psychologically fit.

Cats need mental stimulation, hiding places, vertical spaces, clean places to void their wastes, places to engage in claw-raking and appropriate social activity. They need to feel safe and have their basic biological drives satisfied to live optimum lives.

Dr. Tony Buffington, D.V.M., Ph.D. at the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, recently completed a study of cats with chronic lower urinary tract problems and found that the addition of environmental enrichment resulted in a significant improvement in these cats.

“Not only did their diseases signs improve, but there was also an improvement in their behavior as well” said Dr. Buffington. He has provided the principles of environmental enrichment at a web site, www.nssvet.org/ici/

You can go to this site and do an interactive survey of your home, with suggestions for improvement.

“We have found that people tend to think in terms of square feet instead of thinking cubically,” said Bob Walker of San Diego, who with his wife Frances applied their fine arts background to designing a unique and attractive cat-friendly home. They created several elevated walkways, sleeping areas and pass-throughs for their cats.

You can see photos of their home at www.catshouse.com or in “The Cats’ House” book.

“For our cats, it is a sanctuary to be up high,” Walker said. “We live in earthquake country, and if there is an earthquake or loud noise that disturbs the cats, they all head for the catwalks.”

But you do not need to totally remake your home to provide your cat with a cat-friendly home environment.

“You can rearrange furniture to provide steps for the cats to get to places to hide and higher locations,” Walker suggests. “And you can bolt down your lamps and use a product called Quake-hold so that belongings don’t get knocked over.”

My friend Mike Miller has a cat-friendly home with several cat trees and has built sunny resting places in the window sills. He also took the door off the cupboard above his refrigerator, placed bedding on the shelves and created an ideal sleeping place for his shyest cat, Furful.

Now she can rest comfortably in a place where she can survey the whole room and no one can sneak up on her.

“It wasn’t an easy space for me to use, but is ideal for her,” Miller said.

“Our cats are home more than we are,” Walker said. “If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then our place is truly the cat’s house.”

With some creativity and respect for your companion’s environmental needs, it is a simple matter for cat lovers to turn their home into their cat’s castle as well.