Cat welfare
Keeping an Indoor Cat Genuinely Well
Indoor life removes road and predation risk but adds boredom, conflict and weight gain. Here is how to design a home that answers what a cat actually needs.
The honest trade-off
Indoor cats live longer on average, largely because roads, fights and poisoning account for a great deal of outdoor mortality. That safety comes at a cost: less to do, less to hunt, less control over who they meet, and the weight gain that follows an unvarying diet with nothing to chase.
An indoor home is not automatically worse — it is simply a home you now have to furnish for a predator.
Vertical space and escape routes
Cats resolve most tension by moving away or moving up, not by fighting. Shelves, tall furniture, window perches and the tops of cupboards all count. Arrange them so a cat can cross a room without touching the floor and can always leave a space by two different routes.
- One litter tray per cat plus one spare, in separate quiet locations
- Separate feeding and watering stations, away from trays
- At least two resting places per cat, one of them high
- Scratching posts tall enough for a full stretch, placed where the cat already scratches
Hunting, in miniature
Two or three short wand-toy sessions a day that end in a catch and a meal satisfy far more than a basket of unused toys. Rotate what is available weekly, scatter part of the daily ration for searching, and let some meals come out of a puzzle feeder rather than a bowl.
Signs the setup is not working
Overgrooming, urinating outside the tray, blocked-looking tension between cats who never openly fight, night-time yowling and steady weight gain are all worth investigating. Behaviour changes in cats frequently begin as medical problems, so a veterinary check comes before any behaviour plan.