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Quick & Complete How-To Guide on your Feline's Behavior
Day to Day Activities
Behavioral needs for a cat are essential for their day-to-day survival and should not be overlooked in any way. Allowing cats to have individual control over these instinctual behaviors leads to their prolonged happiness. These essential behavioral needs consist of the following actions: eating, drinking, elimination, security, play and exploration, scratching, and climbing and perching.
Access to Essential Resources
To start, a cat's food and water supply relies heavily on location and ease of access. Cats should always have free access to multiple locations of food and water. This allows them to feel a sense of privacy when choosing their location, while also being able to avoid confrontation in a multi-cat household. Needless to say, these different access points should always be fresh, clean, and located far away from toileting locations as cats will associate the resource with contamination.
Confidential Commode
The elimination area itself is equally vital for a cat's overall wellbeing. The area should be as clean and sanitary as possible, while concurrently being private and secure so that a cat can feel comfortable within their surroundings. Multiple litter box locations per cat inside of the household should be kept ready and available at all times. Every cat will cherish their individual security and privacy in this way.
Structural Security
The same goes for their security as a whole. Cats need places that they can feel hidden, safe, or secure when resting or sleeping. Providing this for the cat through means of hammocks, cat trees, perches, or even empty boxes on the ground are all good options for establishing security. All-encompassing products like high-quality cat trees are fantastic as they provide other behavioral needs of your cat including play, exploration, climbing, perching, and scratching. Keying in on these behaviors and providing means of enrichment through the use of toys, shelves, trees, and scratching posts leads to a happier and less destructive animal long term. Cats with plenty of positive opportunities for enrichment are less likely to find destructive alternatives inside your home.