I buy Bumble Bee tuna in oil. My cat, Emma, loves it when I take a minuscule piece of bread, far smaller than a pea, and dip it in the tuna oil. I’ve also dipped a tiny piece of brown paper from a paper bag into the tuna oil. The idea is to give her a little stimulation, something to make her day at home more interesting. That’s why the pieces of bread and of paper are so small. I’m not trying to feed her, just entertain her with a scent she finds fascinating. She carefully carries the piece of paper away to be enjoyed in privacy. She eats the tuna-oil soaked bread. She’s a “cheap date” ha ha. Doesn’t take much to make her happy.
An array of toys to stimulate and to create opportunities for natural behavior such as stalking moving objects, scratching and pouncing.
Animals who live in zoos can be pitiful shadows. The number of pacing or lethargic or fur-plucking zoo residents are slowly being reduced by enrichment programs, at least in the United States. Enrichment can be providing new and different food types, hiding the food in balls or puzzle boxes, introducing balls or other toys into the enclosure, introducing new scents into the enclosure, providing different types of bedding (straw, wood chips) and teaching tricks to strengthen the bond between zoo keeper and zoo resident. I interned at a zoo several years ago. As an intern, part of my day was spent carrying out enrichment procedures such as hiding food.
When I visit New York’s luxury apartments to care for well-loved cats, I’m saddened by the lack of enrichment. Some owners do go out of their way to provide an array of toys, vary the food, spend time playing with their cat, create bird-watching opportunities, and so on. I love visiting these homes. Other homes are barren, if seen from a cat’s point of view.
One goal of enrichment is to allow the cat to engage in natural behaviors. Scratching is natural. Pouncing is natural. Jumping up to the highest level in the room is natural. In some homes, all of these natural behaviors are grounds for punishment. The cat will be yelled at or sprayed with a water bottle or banished to another room. The inescapable fact is that a cat is a cat. Wanting to have a cat who looks like a cat but doesn’t do what cats do is self-defeating behavior, and accounts for the high frustration levels of some cat owners.
From The Association of Zoos & Aquariums
Types of Enrichment
It is important to have knowledge of a species’ natural behaviors and physiology when developing enrichment program. Several categories of enrichment are then used to enhance that species’ behavioral, physical, social, cognitive, and psychological well being. These categories are not mutually exclusive and often overlap, however each, if relevant to the species, should be incorporated into an animal’s enrichment plan.
Environmental Enrichment Devices
Environmental enrichment devices (EEDs) are objects that can be manipulated by the animal. These objects may be novel or pre-existing. Natural EEDs may include browse, large and small branches, wood wool, hay, and flowers however these items should be kept clean to prevent bacterial growth. Man-made EEDs may include premade items such as car wash roller brushes or strips, Boomer balls, tires, and Kong toys, or constructed items such as puzzle boxes, piñatas, and various PVC contraptions.
Habitat Enrichment
Habitat design is an important consideration for providing enrichment. Habitats should provide a variety of substrates, levels, and complexities. Considerations should be given to useable space versus total space, and ease of reaching or changing platforms, tiers, ropes, nesting/denning areas, feed/water dispensers, and crevices/crannies for EED/enrichment food hiding.
Sensory Enrichment
Animal sensory systems are typically specialized by species and play crucial roles in their survival. Sensory enrichment is designed to address the animal’s sense of smell, touch, hearing, vision, and taste and elicit species-specific response, territorial, reproductive or hunting behaviors. Olfactory stimuli may include natural predator, pheromone, or prey scents or novel scents such as spices or perfumes. Tactile stimuli may include a variety of EEDs that can be manipulated including materials of different textures such as straw, soft blankets, paper, burlap, cardboard, or wood. Auditory stimuli may include the presentation of natural sounds or animal vocalizations recordings. Visual stimuli may include EEDs of different colors, those that move by wind or water current, animals in the line of sight from other habitats, video presentations, or mirrors. Gustatory stimuli include food enrichment items, flavored sprays, or beverages.
Food Enrichment
Food can be presented in a variety of ways elicit feeding, hunting, foraging behaviors, problem-solving strategies, and to facilitate behavioral conditioning. Food may be fresh, frozen, soft, hard, smooth, rough, heavy, light, cold, or and may be incorporated into puzzle boxes, hidden in or scattered about the habitat, or buried in the substrate.
Social Groupings
Social groupings should resemble those observed in the wild to facilitate feeding, grooming, social, territorial, and courtship behaviors. Mixed species exhibits may also provide symbiotic or complementary activities between the species.
Behavioral Conditioning
Behavioral conditioning for animal husbandry and research behaviors provides cognitive stimulation that increases the intellectual focus of an animal. Animals voluntarily participate in these training sessions to maintain established or learn new behaviors.
In the future, will adoptable cats be pre-sorted via genetic tests? Cats who have gene(s) contributing to tameness could be chosen for adoption by families with small children or fragile seniors. Instead of basing an adoption decision on cuteness, the decision would be based on data. This is one of the possibilities being investigated by researchers at UC Davis.
“A secondary goal of the research is to identify regions of the genome that may be involved with the domestication process of the cat. The project could identify genes that are contributing to boldness and tameness that are influencing cat domestication. Genetic tests could feasibly be developed that would help select the more tame and social cats that would be more suitable for adoption and nursing care interactions. The investigators already have the required samples available and have collaborated on similar studies in dogs. The data analysis would be feasible within the year.”
D12FE-505, Leslie A. Lyons, Ph.D., University of California/Davis
“Genetic Estimation of Introgression Between Domestic Cat and Wildcat Populations”
Bundle cat in a large, thick towel. Bath towels of good quality work best. You can use two towels if cat is irritable. This is a lovely, large cat who is sweet-natured, but due to hip sensitivity, can be irritable during grooming. He has swatted at me a few times, but I don’t take it personally. He’s just saying, “Be careful lady!” I have to always be aware of his hips to make sure that I don’t cause the big guy discomfort.After bathing, I towel dry for several minutes, using one towel, then switching to another dry towel. Then I comb the head and neck. Most cats enjoy being combed there.If I haven’t already trimmed the claws, I pull out one paw at a time to trim them. In this photo, we are on the bathroom floor. The cat is on my lap. This is his rear paw. I am holding his upper body in my arms, close against me. Some cats seem to prefer being held close against my body instead of being on a table.Now the cat has been towel dried. I am ready to blow dry and de-shed. If the cat is jittery about blow drying, I keep his front area wrapped securely in the towel. I blow dry his rear. Then I stroke his face to calm him. Lastly, I blow dry his front area. In the photo, he is leaning against my leg, snuggling his face into my foot. Tickles! You can see that even though he is well-cared for and often groomed, his coat does have shedded fur clumped in with fur that’s still attached. If he weren’t groomed monthly, he would develop mats and be carrying around a coat that is weighed down with shedded fur. Shedded fur keep air from circulating to the skin. It’s just plain uncomfortable to be wearing a thick blanket of excess fur. I develop a lot of affection for the cats I groom, so I like to see them thriving and at ease in their body.
Throwing up hairballs isn’t natural. If cats still lived outdoors, shedded fur would be blown off or pulled off. In the home, fur detaches, gets licked into the throat and is either vomited out, or accumulates enough to create an obstruction if it doesn’t pass through the body. Everyone has time for 15 seconds of brushing a day. For a short-haired cat, 15 seconds can mean the difference between hairballs and no hairballs. The volume of shedding fur usually increases dramatically in spring and fall.
Love Glove mitt briskly stroking fur. Cats enjoy this.After 3 seconds brushing my cat Emma.After a few more seconds . . .Done for the day. 15 seconds of brushing.
I put Emma on my lap, snuggled up against me.I pull her rear paw forward so it is close to her front paw. This is the claw trimmer I will use.This is the trimmed claw.
I put Emma on my lap with my hand under her armpits.She sits calmly.I’m wearing a slippery dress, so she slides a little.I hold her paw and look at the claws to find one that needs trimming. See the clear part of the claw? See the pink part? I trimmed the tip of the claw so that it’s not sharp and pointy.I used little claw trimmers.
The orange nail trimmers are for my beagle. The banana and the weight are mine. The other tools prevent my short-haired cat from becoming a fur-ball factory.I brush Emma every day to stop her from becoming a fur-ball factory.She rolls around and shows me her belly when I brush her.
