How can you improve your cat's Life
The leading cause of death for cats is euthanasia. This is due to unacceptable behavior in the household. This includes behaviors such as fighting, destroying furniture with claws, and inappropriate urination and defecation. When these behaviors become unacceptable, the cat is either put outside or taken to a shelter for euthanasia. All of this is due to a lack of understanding of what cats need to be physically and emotionally healthy.
From a health perspective, cats have a protective mechanism that prevents them from showing outward signs of illness. This leads to delayed recognition of a problem and delay in seeking veterinary help until the problem is well entrenched and difficult to correct.
How to provide a healthy environment for your cat
Provide a safe environment.
Cats need to feel safe in their environment. They feel safer in elevated areas that allow them to observe their surroundings as a whole and from above, and to have a place where they can retreat so they feel protected, especially if they get scared. You can use ledges, boxes and carrier baskets as a start, see if and how your cat uses them, and adjust from there.
Some cats associate the carrier with a stressful event, such as a car ride or a visit to a vet. To overcome this problem, you can leave the carrier anywhere in the house and allow their natural curiosity to get used to it. Put in food and a comfortable bedding to entice your cat to enter the carrier and feel comfortable in it. This habituation to the carrier has the added benefit of reducing stress when you have to take her somewhere, as this is her "security blanket away from home".
In homes with multiple cats, make sure there are many nooks and crannies in your home that your cat can use to stay away from other cats when she wants to. Being out of each other's sight when they want time to themselves also helps.
Set up multiple locations to meet important needs.
These are the basic needs such as food, water, litter boxes and scratching posts. By having these basic needs in different places and levels of the home, you minimize competition, bullying, aggression and stress, in multi-cat households. In a household with one cat, it is also beneficial to have these things in different places, as it prevents boredom and encourages them to be curious, a natural behavior for them.
Don't be fooled into thinking that just because your cats eat next to each other, there is no substantial stress on an individual cat. These cats tolerate each other, but this is not the optimal environment for them. This contributes to the ongoing stress that makes them more susceptible to disease and behavioral problems.
Cats that like each other are affectionate toward each other, and show this by grooming each other and sleeping together.
Consistently make time for play
Stalking, chasing and playing are natural behaviors that your cat should be able to express on a daily basis. In addition to the psychological benefit, physical activity also helps prevent obesity, a common and serious problem in cats. Obese cats are much more susceptible to a liver disease called Hepatic Lipidosis, and also to diabetes (Diabetes Mellitus).
Make time every day to play with your cats. Consistency is more important than quantity, so even a few minutes of play at a set time each day is good.
You can encourage playful activity yourself by using a laser pointer to see if your cat will chase it, a string with something on the end that they can hit with their paws, throwing a ball of yarn on the ground, and even motorized or wind-up toys if the movement or sound doesn't scare them away. Use your imagination and vary it up by alternating toys and introducing new ones.
Hiding small amounts of food in different places, or putting it in a feeding toy they like, encourages their normal hunting behavior. Move slowly toward this by putting only a small amount of food in these toys. If your cat likes this and is eating well, you can transition from putting all the food in a bowl at once to putting all the food in toys and letting him search for his food.
It's important to make sure your cat eats, because cats are one of those animals that can't go long without eating. If they don't eat, they can develop a liver disease called hepatic lipidosis, especially if you have an obese cat that you are trying to make more active to lose weight by making him hunt for his food, instead of making him put everything in a bowl to eat at once.
Let your cat come to you
The time to pet your cat is when he wants to be petted by coming to you. Petting the head when your cat wants to be petted gives you the greatest chance of turning your cat into a purring machine. If your cat is young and you offer him many different human interactions, this is the way to make him much more affectionate and interested in coming to your lap or sleeping next to you.
Important senses
As humans, our sense of smell is greatly reduced compared to our feline friends. Not only do they have a better sense of smell than we do, they also use this sense to mark their territory, an important behavior for them. Your cat does this by rubbing or scratching objects with its face. Pheromones used for this purpose are perceived by other cats in ways we cannot understand.