A bored cat does not look bored. It looks like a cat that has taken up scratching the sofa, over-grooming a patch of leg, or shouting at four in the morning.
Indoor cats have everything except the thing they are built for, which is hunting. The good news is that the fix is fifteen minutes a day and costs almost nothing.
Signs your cat needs more to do
- Scratching furniture when there are perfectly good posts available.
- Over-grooming, licking or pulling fur out. Worth a vet check too, since pain and skin problems look the same.
- Sleeping even more than usual and ignoring toys.
- Persistent meowing at you for something neither of you can identify.
Five games worth playing
The wand toy
The most effective toy in the house, because it moves like prey and you control it.
Move it unpredictably. Let it dart, stop dead, and disappear behind furniture. Prey hides, and a toy dragged steadily across a carpet is a toy no cat believes in. Crucially, let them catch it regularly. A hunt that never succeeds is frustrating rather than satisfying, and the catch is what completes the sequence.
Kibble chase
Take a few pieces of their daily food and throw them one at a time across the floor.
They run, they pounce, and they have worked for a meal instead of finding it in a bowl. It costs nothing, takes two minutes, and it comes out of their existing food rather than adding calories.
The cardboard tube puzzle
Cut a few holes in an empty toilet roll tube, put a couple of treats inside and fold the ends shut.
They have to bat it around to get anything out. It is a genuine problem-solving toy that costs nothing and is disposable, which matters because paper puzzles get destroyed.
Hide and seek
Go behind a door or into another room and call them. When they find you, praise and a treat.
It uses hearing and scent rather than sight, and it is one of the few games that is also relationship-building. You can hide favourite toys around the house on the same principle.
The paper bag
A plain paper bag on the floor with the handles cut off, so nothing can get caught around a neck. Never a plastic one.
The crinkle and the enclosed space do the work without you. Throw a small toy inside and it becomes an ambush.
How to make it stick
- Short and often beats long and occasional. Two ten-minute sessions a day suits a cat’s natural rhythm far better than an hour at the weekend.
- Play before meals. Hunt, catch, eat, groom, sleep is the natural sequence, and following it is why cats sleep so soundly after a proper session.
- Rotate toys. Put half of them away and swap them over every couple of weeks, and they come back interesting.
- Evening sessions do the most for night-time yowling, because a cat that has hunted properly at nine is not looking for something to do at four.
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