Enriching a Flat for a Cat on a Budget: Play, Foraging and Rotation

Quick answer

A window, a plant and a bed. Two of those are enrichment and one of them needs checking against a toxic plant list before the cat chews it.

An indoor cat in a flat is not short of space. It is short of things to do, and the specific thing it is short of is the sequence of stalking, chasing, pouncing and catching that its body is built around.

Almost none of that needs money. The things that actually change an indoor cat's behaviour are how you play, how the food is delivered, and how often the environment changes. A cardboard box and ten minutes of correct wand technique beat an expensive tower nobody uses.

• Play in short sessions that end with a catch. A hunt that never ends in a kill is frustrating, not satisfying.
• Move the daily food out of the bowl. Scatter feeding and homemade puzzle feeders turn one minute of eating into twenty minutes of work.
• Rotate. Put most toys away and bring a few out at a time, so old toys become new again.
• Give more than one of everything that matters, in different places: resting spots, water, litter trays.
• Enrichment is not a substitute for safety. In a flat, the two things most likely to kill a cat are lilies and open upper-floor windows.

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Lilies are lethal to cats, and there is no safe amount.

All parts of true lilies and daylilies, including the pollen and the vase water, cause acute kidney failure in cats. A cat that brushes past a bouquet and grooms the pollen off its coat can be poisoned. Do not keep lilies in a home with a cat, and tell people who send flowers. If a cat has any contact with a lily, go to a vet immediately rather than waiting for signs, because treatment started early works far better than treatment started once the kidneys have failed.
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Decide in 60 seconds

Why the prey sequence is the thing that matters

A cat's hunt runs in a fixed order: stare, stalk, chase, pounce, grab, bite, and then eat. Each part is rewarding, and the sequence is designed to end in a kill and a meal.

Most owner play breaks the sequence. A laser dot allows staring, stalking and chasing, and then it vanishes. The cat never grabs anything, so the sequence never completes, and some cats become visibly more frustrated after laser play rather than less.

The fix is not to ban the laser but to finish it properly. Land the dot on a physical toy or a scattered treat at the end of every session so the cat catches something real.

The same principle explains why a static toy on the floor is ignored. Cats respond to movement that behaves like prey: small, fast, away from the cat, and hiding. Dragging a wand toy toward your cat looks like a threat. Dragging it away and letting it disappear behind a chair leg looks like a mouse.

Short and frequent beats long and occasional.

A wild cat makes many attempts a day. Several sessions of a few minutes, ending in a catch, do more than one long session at the weekend, and they fit better around a working day.

Always finish with food.

Hunt, catch, eat, groom, sleep. If you feed a meal or a few pieces of the daily ration straight after play, you complete the natural cycle, and this is the single most effective trick for a cat that wakes the household at 5am.

Turning the daily food into work

Nothing here needs replacing. Spreading the same resources into more places, and moving the food out of the bowl, is most of the work.

Weigh out the day's ration in the morning and use it, rather than adding extra food on top. Enrichment that makes the cat fatter has traded one problem for another.

Scatter feeding.

Throw a portion of dry ration across a clear floor, or across a few rooms. Ten seconds of your effort turns into several minutes of searching and produces movement, sniffing and problem solving.

A toilet-roll tube puzzle.

Fold in one end, drop kibble inside, fold in the other, and let the cat work it open. Free, and it lasts as long as the tube does.

A tray of tubes.

Stand several cardboard tubes upright inside a shoebox, and drop food into some of them. The cat has to reach in with a paw, which is exactly the motion it would use to hook prey out of a burrow.

An egg box or muffin tray.

Food in some of the wells, and something the cat has to move out of the way over others. Start easy, with everything visible, and make it harder only once the cat is confident.

A plastic bottle roller.

A clean, dry bottle with holes cut slightly larger than a kibble, with the cap and the ring left off. Remove any sharp edges from the holes.

Hide small portions around the flat.

On a shelf, under a stool, in a box. This uses the cat's nose, which is a sense indoor cats rarely get to work.

Start every one of these on the easiest setting. A cat that fails at a puzzle feeder walks away and will not come back to it, and a cat that has been left hungry by a puzzle it cannot solve has been made anxious, not enriched.

Cheap changes to the flat itself

Height, in more than one place.

Cats feel safest when they can look down. Clearing the top of a bookcase and adding a folded towel costs nothing. A stool next to a shelf next to a wardrobe makes a staircase. Make sure every high spot has two ways down.

Somewhere to disappear.

A hiding place is not the same as a high place. A cardboard box on its side, a covered bed, or the space under a chair gives a cat somewhere to withdraw to, and having one measurably reduces stress in cats.

A window seat.

A chair, a shelf, or a folded blanket on a windowsill. Watching the street is genuine occupation, though a cat that gets agitated by other cats outside may need the lower half of the window frosted instead.

Scratching that suits the cat.

Tall enough to stretch out fully, heavy enough not to wobble, and placed where the cat already scratches. Sisal rope and plain corrugated cardboard both work, and a flat cardboard scratcher costs very little. Some cats prefer horizontal, some vertical, so offer both.

More than one of everything.

Two water bowls in different rooms, two resting places, and one litter tray more than the number of cats, in separate locations. This matters most in a small flat, where a single resource in a single spot means one cat can control it.

Water where the cat will drink it.

A wide, shallow bowl that the whiskers do not touch, placed away from the food and the litter tray, gets used far more than a narrow one next to the food.

Rotation, which costs nothing at all

The reason a cat ignores its toys is habituation. The toy has stopped being novel, and novelty is most of what makes a toy interesting.

Put all but three or four toys into a closed box. Swap them weekly. A toy that has been out of sight for a fortnight is treated as a new toy.

Store fabric toys with a small amount of dried catnip in the box, so they pick up scent while they are away.

Rotate the cardboard too. A different box in a different place is a different experience, and a used delivery box is free.

Catnip works on some cats and not others, the response is inherited, and it does not appear until a kitten is a few months old. Silver vine and valerian are worth trying in cats that do not respond to catnip.

Adjusting for age

Kittens.

Short bursts, many times a day, and never with hands. Hands used as toys create an adult cat that bites hands. Kittens also chew everything, so cable covers and the removal of hair ties, elastic bands, sewing thread and small plastic pieces matter more at this age than at any other.

Adults.

The age most likely to be under-stimulated and to gain weight. Two proper wand sessions a day, food out of the bowl, and weekly rotation. This is also the age at which training pays off: cats learn readily, and five minutes of clicker work is real mental exercise.

Seniors.

The instinct does not fade, the body does. Keep playing, but lower the height, slow the movement, and shorten the session. Add ramps or steps to favourite high places, choose puzzle feeders that need less force, and put a litter tray with a low entry on every floor the cat uses. A senior cat that has stopped jumping usually has arthritis rather than a loss of interest, and that is treatable.

What never to do

Never leave a cat unsupervised with string, wool, thread, tinsel, ribbon or elastic. A cat's tongue points backwards, so anything that starts going down cannot be spat out. Swallowed thread saws through the intestine and is one of the most serious surgical emergencies in cats. Thread with a needle still attached is worse again.

Never use your hands or feet as toys, at any age.

Never punish scratching, spraying or night activity. Punishment produces a cat that is frightened of you and does the same behaviour when you are not there, and in an anxious cat it makes the underlying problem worse.

Never give a cardboard tube or a container the cat can get its head into and not out of, and cut any handles or loops before giving packaging to a cat.

Never assume destructive or repetitive behaviour is simply boredom. Overgrooming, constant chewing of non-food items, and sudden aggression all need a medical assessment first.

Never add enrichment food on top of the daily ration. Take it out of the ration, or you will be treating boredom and creating obesity.

When to get help

A well-occupied indoor cat eats calmly, rests in the open, and has energy left for a hunt in the evening.

Go to a vet immediately if the cat has had any contact with a lily, has swallowed string or thread, has fallen from a height, or is straining in the litter tray without producing urine.

Book a same-day appointment for a cat that has stopped playing and started hiding, is not eating, or has become suddenly aggressive when handled.

Book a routine appointment for overgrooming, for repeated chewing of fabric or plastic, for night-time yowling in an older cat, or for a cat that has stopped jumping to places it used to reach easily.

Ask about a referral to a qualified feline behaviourist if a cat remains anxious or destructive once medical causes have been excluded and the environment has been improved. Behaviour work is far more effective when the physical causes have already been ruled out.