Do cats need a lot of fun exercises? Yes, of course, they do! Because when your cats are exercising, they’re helping maintain a healthy weight and also getting stimulation to keep them emotionally and behaviorally healthy and happy.
Here are some tips on how to exercise your cats along with some cat workouts that will be fun for cats and for you.
Just like humans, cats need to get regular exercise to stay healthy and prevent weight gain.
If you’re concerned that your cat isn’t exercising enough, and there’s no medical reason for it, it’s not always clear how you can help. With dogs, you can ensure that you take them out on more walks. However, with cats, you will need to encourage them to exercise by changing their environment.
To understand how to help your cat exercise more, you first need to know why they might be spending so much time lying around and what might tempt them to exercise.
Why does my cat sleep so much?
Cats are predators, so they are naturally wired to sleep as often as possible to conserve energy for when they need to hunt. Therefore, it’s pretty standard for cats to sleep around fifteen hours a day!
The time when cats are most active is between dusk and dawn because, in the wild, that’s when the most hunting opportunities would present themselves.
It’s also important to know that your cat is likely to sleep more if the weather is bad, so it’s not unusual to see your cat sleeping often in the winter.
Although they sleep often, cats can spring into action if a hunting opportunity presents itself – which is something that you can replicate at home to encourage exercise.
If your pet is overweight
Before we talk about encouraging exercise, it’s important to note that exercise alone won’t help if your cat is overweight.
Like humans, pets need to eat the right things and get enough exercise to stay in good healthy shape. If you’d like to understand more about how to get the right balance of nutrition and exercise for your pet, you can read this article on the diamond pet`s blog about it.
Suppose you want to keep your pet healthy. In that case, you need to choose a pet food that contains adequate nutrition and is both bioavailable (meaning that the body can easily absorb the nutrients) and easily digestible.
You should also be careful about over-feeding treats or allowing your cat to snaffle any of your food – which most cats will try to do!
Ways to encourage your cats to exercise through play
The best way to get your cat to exercise is to play into its natural hunting instincts and present them with opportunities for play that mimic hunting.
There are some changes that you can make to your home environment and games that you can play that will tempt your feline friend to exercise more:
- It takes two. Two cats living together will naturally play together, chasing and play fighting, which will keep them healthy. If you are thinking of getting a cat, think about getting two for this reason. It can be challenging to introduce a second cat later on, so this may not be a viable option for you if you have one cat already.
- Cat towers. Cat towers will encourage your cat to scratch, which works their legs and keeps their claws in good shape. Plus, it might just save your sofa!
- Keep plenty of toys around like balls, toy mice, and chase toys. These toys are designed to catch your pet’s attention and tempt them to play. Make a point of interacting with them, too – throw the ball or move the chase toy around.
- Cats love chasing a laser pointer, and you can play with them without ever leaving the sofa
photo source | adobe