Exercise is vital for the proper health of your cat. Cat body movement, especially the kind that uses their hunting ability, helps them maintain a healthy weight and burn off extra energy during their search. Exercise is also essential for their mental well-being since it may help them cope with feelings of despair and boredom, resolving severe health and behavioral problems.
If your cats have access to the outdoors, he or she will be able to get enough exercise all by themselves. If this is not the case, and you want to keep your cat indoors, you will most likely need to encourage your cat to get some exercise regularly. Maintaining a healthy and enjoyable lifestyle for your cat, in conjunction with a thorough and balanced food, is essential for their overall health. Although a cat will not exercise as readily as a dog, there are a few strategies that may be used to keep your cat active and mobile throughout the day.
How to Help Your Lazy Cat to Exercise?
The majority of cats like to rest throughout the day. They conserve their energy for nighttime activities like hunting and enjoyment. Because you have to sleep at night, you should encourage your cat to play during the day.
With a bit of help from you, your cat can keep a healthy and active lifestyle – and possibly even have a little more fun in the process. So, there are numerous ways by which you can get your lazy cat to exercise, which include the following:
- Try to spend 10 to 15 minutes at a time playing with your cat: If they don’t like it, they’ll let you know right away. When you think your cat is getting bored, take the toys from them and try petting them with a few treats to make them feel special.
- Introduce some new toys: As you are probably aware, cats are known to be particularly fond of toys having feathers and strings, as you may have seen. However, studying your cat while playing it possible to identify what kinds of toys they prefer. Demonstrate your skills with a bird-shaped toy, then a mouse-shaped toy, then another in the shape of a bug. Identifying the sort of plaything she likes the most may aid you in selecting what type of plaything to get her in the future.
- Make certain that you’re prepared for the kill: Cats are especially delighted when they can sink their teeth and claws into their toys and take a nice bite out of them. Accept their requests and replace toys and feathers as soon as they are worn out.
- Make games more challenging by increasing the number of stages (introduce cat tree): An elevated cat tree should be put in an open floor space so that your cat may run and then jump onto it for additional exercise.
- Get your cat a piñata to play with: Items that dangle in the air are particularly appealing to cats, who like tossing them about. Even more, inspiration will come from the food that you hang for them. To make a piñata, you’ll need a plastic container with a lid, such as an old yogurt or sour cream cup, and some ingredients. In the bottom of the container, poke a small hole with your finger. Fill the container with a few healthy treats and put it somewhere where your cat can access it with a piece of twine. If they strike it in the proper location, the sweets will fall out.
- Make a tail out of it: Putting a thread or long piece of fabric inside the rear pocket of your pants while strolling about the house can encourage your cat to chase after it. You should still use the string even if you are not the one in charge of it. It is conceivable that your cat will ingest the string, which might be fatal to him. So be careful.
- Take a hike: Cats should be trained to walk on a leash in the same way that dogs can, but it is preferable to teach them while they are still young or when they are still learning. Cats that aren’t terrified of humans are the best candidates for taking walks in the fresh air. Consider utilizing a harness instead of just a collar and a leash to keep your dog safe. Before allowing your children to go outdoors, you should check whether any loose neighborhood dogs might terrify them.
- Use cat lasers: As your cat chases after the laser pointer, it may provide hours of entertainment and, yes, even some physical activity. When utilizing the laser, be careful not to shine the laser directly into the cat’s or anybody else’s eyes while doing so.
- Make a note to arrange some time for enjoyment: Make a note in your calendar to set aside some time each day for you and your cat to spend quality time together. Cats are most active at dawn and dusk, so catching them in their natural environment in the evening or early morning would be the best bet if you want to photograph them. Adding a play session before their meals may also be beneficial, as it will allow them to feel the excitement of the hunt as the cat “catch” their food and bring it to them.
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10 Cat Exercises That Your Cat Will Absolutely Love
Many veterinarians strongly suggest the use of cat workouts to maintain cats healthy far into old age. While a cat is less likely than a dog to engage in physical activity, there are several strategies you may employ to keep your cat active and mobile while you are out and about.
- Introduce another cat that behaves as a training partner: As a cat would not respond to your requests to play, to ensure the cat activity they require, begin with a couple of cats to get the ball rolling. When a pair of cats get along well, they will get plenty of exercise through their own wrestling and chasing activities.
- Consider the cat tower: Multi-tiered “cat towers,” which can be purchased both online and at pet stores, are another fantastic way to ensure that your cat has plenty of areas to play and places to climb to get a decent workout. Putting little treats in different tower portions will encourage climbing and playing.
- Make sure there are plenty of toys to choose from: For cat exercises, it is preferable to offer them a range of toys to pick from rather than restricting their alternatives. This is because cats are far more private than dogs; therefore, providing them with a variety of toys is preferable to restricting their options. There is also no requirement for expensive toys from the pet store for this to occur. To encourage cats to engage in physical exercise, you use everyday household objects as toys to keep them entertained. For example, pingpong balls or pipe cleaners rolled up are good examples of what you can do.
- Construct a hockey rink: For your cat’s immediate enjoyment, it recommends placing a ball in a large cardboard box or the bathtub, which will serve as a “hockey rink.” This will make things much more exciting and amusing for your cat. As you laugh at the ball bouncing off the walls, the cat will receive some much-needed exercise (and the ball flying off the walls after the cat).
- Take pleasure in playing with lasers (as discussed above): For the sake of continuing the topic of laughing, few things will keep you engaged — or your cat moving faster — more than a laser pointer that is affixed to the end of a pen or leveling instrument. While laser toys can be enjoyable, that they be used in conjunction with a real toy that the cat can catch to avoid becoming obsessed with the laser beam and being frustrated with not being able to catch it. Making assured that the beam does not enter the cat’s eyes is essential.
- Give your cat a wand to play with: This is a fantastic cat exercise that may be utilized to follow laser therapy treatments. Toys with distracting features such as a feather, mouse, or other similar items at the other end of the wand are available in various sizes and price ranges. Interactive play with a cat wand or fishing-pole-type toy is a wonderful exercise for your little cat, and it’s usually rather humorous as well as highly satisfying for the enormous hunter that lives inside your small cat. Extra difficulty may be introduced by dragging the toy across the sofa or up and down the stairs, which will increase the overall intensity of the activity.
- Catnip should only be used under strict supervision: Only use catnip in the right situations to urge your cat to exercise and that you avoid using it in any other circumstances. It’s important to remember that not all cats are responsive to catnip, and of those that are, only a tiny fraction will become violent due to exposure to catnip, warns the expert. Before a stressful event, you should never feed your cat catnip to help calm him down.
- Put your kitty on a treadmill or a wheel where you can keep an eye on him: It is possible to successfully train your cat to run on a treadmill for exercise purposes, which may come as a surprise to you. According to the expert, the best time to begin is when they are young and have a lot of energy to burn. They are also easy to entice with a toy at this age. In addition, you should constantly keep an eye on the cat when it is running on the treadmill as an extra precaution. Cats can run at rates of up to 30 miles per hour, but you should start gently and gradually raise the speed because you do not know your cat’s speed.
- Go for a walk (with your feline companion) in the fresh air: If you provide your cat with the proper training and equipment, he or she will be able to walk outside with a leash and harness, just as a dog does. If you can teach your cat to tolerate the collar and lead, leash walking is a terrific activity. To avoid the cat from wriggling out of the harness, use a soft garment for the upper half of the cat’s back with straps built-in rather than a typical harness. Although younger cats are easier to train than older cats, patience and effort are necessary for all situations. Then connect the leash and allow them to drag it about for a few minutes before picking up the leash and providing a little amount of pressure. Even while they feel they will adjust very immediately, it might take up to a week or two for them to feel entirely comfortable.
- Follow an agility course: The veterinarian suggests participating in cat agility activities if your cat is extremely energetic and agile. Cats may profit from the mix of speed and difficulty, although you may be more familiar with trials for dogs or horses. There are various obstacles in each program, such as bars to jump over or tunnels to travel through, that push your cat both physically and psychologically. Cat
Cat Toys For Exercise
Whether you have a boisterous kitten, an aging cat who likes to laze about all day, or a kitty dealing with weight-related health issues, your feline companion will benefit from the best cat toys for fitness.
- Interactive toys allow you and your cat to engage and play with one another, which increases satisfaction and connection between you and your cat.
- Cats who eat too quickly benefit from food-dispensing toys because they avoid becoming bloated and prone to indigestion as a result of their excessive consumption (and might leave you having to clean up messes on the floor). Cats are receiving some exercise simultaneously as they are being encouraged to eat their food more slowly by their owners.
- Hunting toys allow your cat to express his or her natural hunting instincts by chasing them around the house. Among the options are ball toys that cats can swat and swipe, electrical cat toys that keep your cat entertained while you are away, and lasers that your cat will find intriguing to chase around the home and yard (and are entertaining for you). To give you a heads up, cats have been known to grow frustrated with laser toys when there is nothing substantial to catch them with. Completing the game with catnip or an interactive toy can assist in making laser toys more fulfilling for cats.
- Catnip toys will cause your cat to have a burst of energy that will last around 10 minutes, which is a fantastic way for your cat to get some energy out quickly and effectively. Catnip toys are available in a variety of flavors. Always remember that not all cats respond to catnip, and you won’t be able to tell if your cat does or doesn’t respond to it until he or she is about six months old at the earliest.
You may help your kitty maintain good physical and mental health by incorporating some of these 5 cat toys into their daily routine. This will also help to relieve boredom and tension, both of which can contribute to undesired behavior.
Conclusion: What Are the Most Effective Methods to Encourage My Cat to Become More Active?
The fact that cats are created to participate in rapid bursts of physical activity rather than prolonged durations of physical activity should be kept in mind while providing toys and activities to encourage this behavior in your cat.
To satisfy their predatory impulses, cats are usually drawn to activities that include fishing rods, and the use of fishing rod toys that increase cardiovascular fitness will be an excellent addition to your pet’s diet routine. If you provide little food morsels at the finish of each chase, the dog may be more likely to participate in an additional cardiovascular activity due to the food. Additionally, a few sessions of reward-based training may prove to be an extremely beneficial means of assisting your cat in burning off some calories while also giving you a more effective method of connecting with your pet. Whether you educate your cat to come when you call him, chase a toy, or come to his food dish on command, your cat will learn a few new words, burn off a few calories, and have an excellent time while doing so.