Your young cat’s overall well-being is intimately linked with their environment. Many health conditions in cats, including stress over-grooming and feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD), can be linked to an environment that isn’t meeting a cat’s needs.
The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) and the International Society of Feline Medicine (ISFM) developed guidelines that can be used to ensure you’re meeting the environmental needs of your young cat.
AAFP and ISFM Feline Environmental Needs Guidelines
In the guidelines, a cat’s environmental needs are centered on five topics, called pillars. By focusing on these five pillars when evaluating your cat’s environment, you can help to reduce stress and its associated disorders.
Pillar 1: Provide a safe place
Your cat should have a private location they can retreat to. For a lot of cats, it helps to have their safe space in a raised location. Examples of safe spaces could include cardboard boxes, cat carriers, perches and hideaway holes. If you have multiple cats, consider using safe spaces with multiple entryways so that one cat can’t be trapped by another. You should have at least as many safe spaces as you have cats in the home.
Pillar 2: Provide multiple and separated key environmental resources
Your cat needs access to food, water, toileting areas, scratching areas, play areas and resting or sleeping areas. These resources should be available in multiple places, especially if you have a multi-cat household. Each resource should be in its own location separate from the others. For instance, the food bowl should not be near the litter box. Cats should have at least two options for each resource, such as two feeding areas and two resting areas. In multi-cat households, each cat should have access to their own resources.
Pillar 3: Provide opportunity for play and predatory behavior
Encouraging your cat’s natural instincts is a great way to provide enrichment. You can do this with toys, play-based interaction with you or other people in the home and feeding devices that require the cat to acquire their food. Make sure to put away toys with strings or other parts that can be ingested after play.
Pillar 4: Provide positive, consistent and predictable human-cat social interaction
Cats often prefer frequent but low-intensity interaction with their humans. You should not force your cat to interact with people and should instead let the cat initiate. Signs that your young cat is comfortable with the interaction include:
- Slow blinking
- Purring and chirruping
- Rubbing their face on or head bunting (headbutting) the human
- Climbing into a person’s lap
- Rolling onto their side to expose their belly
Pillar 5: Provide an environment that respects the importance of the cat’s sense of smell
Cats have an incredibly strong sense of smell. When possible, consider how strong smells like certain cleansers could affect your cat’s sense of smell. Consider leaving footwear that could track in unfamiliar scents at the entryway. You can use cat pheromone diffusers and sprays to help alleviate anxiety. Your cat should have scratching posts and other areas that they can rub with their faces to disperse their scent.
Find out more about types of toys your young cat might enjoy.
