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Playing with your cat is important to help maintain her physical and mental well being and to develop a bond between owner and pet.
Young kittens, especially, need a lot of attention and extended play will help her develop co-ordination, muscle tone, stamina and agility. Apart from all that it’s fun! Both for kitty and owner.
Don’t be surprised, though, if a young cat pesters you to play all day. Old cats will show a lot less interest but a bit of play now and again is still important to maintain a cat’s fitness and general health.
When cats play they exercise their predatory instincts. They love to stalk and chase things then pounce and wrestle with them. In young cats and kittens this is natural behavior designed to help them develop the skills they would need if they had to fend for themselves in the wild. In older cats play helps to keep those skills sharp.
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Have a selection of toys around for your cat to play with. Cats can easily get bored if you try to get them to play with the same toy all the time. These can be made or bought. They need to stimulate the cat’s senses and should be based around movement, smell and sound (not necessarily all at once).
Home-made toys can be a simple as a length of string or a rolled-up ball of paper. You can make a simple ‘fishing rod’ style of toy quite easily and put different toys on a string at the end of it.
Bought cat toys can come with feathers, rattles, bells and catnip. They can make all kinds of noises when pounced upon or wrestled. Some even contain a microchip to emit digitally created noises.
A play circuit is a track along which a ball rolls whilst the cat tries to catch it. It has special access points to allow the cat to reach the ball…(read more)
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Most people would think that dogs are the only animals who play fetch but cats also seem to enjoy this game.
It is, however, much harder to teach a cat to do this than a dog. You can teach a dog by rewarding it when it does something right but that doesn’t work so well with cats.
The first part of teaching a cat to fetch is pretty easy. Select a small cat toy or ball, get the cat interested in it, then throw it. Most cats will chase after it and catch it. Then they will probably pat it around with their paws and chase after it some more.
Once the cat has caught the toy go over and retrieve it and bring it back to where you started, encouraging the cat to come with you. Once you’re back where you started, make a fuss of the cat and throw the toy for her again… (read more)
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