5 Tips to Improve Your Cat's Quality of Life

0:00Um, so the question comes from me from Tucson, Arizona. Um, and as we go into the new year, I'm just wondering, what are a couple of things I can do to improve my cat, shout out Mr. Pumpkin, uh, his quality of life in the, in the new upcoming year. Oh, that's great. That's a great question. Um, so I'm not must for New Year's resolutions, but you can change for your cat to really improve their, their life or really help improve their life. So let's talk about five different things that we might be able to do. Okay. Perfect. One is what I call upgrading their vertical territory. That means, um, a cat tree or shelves on the, on the wall that they can climb on or a window sill with a great bird feeder outside. These things are really, really helpful because it gets them moving. They like, they look, they actually cats kind of see in 3D, you know, so they like to see everything it's going around them. And by increasing their vertical space, you really can help the quality of their life. Okay. Let me add it to my shopping list. Yeah. Um, if you want to get really crazy, there

1:01are these things called cat highways. I'm not exactly sure what that is. But apparently, it's on the internet where it goes from one room to the other and it sounds very, that sounds really interesting. I think it's over the top. I don't know if you can do that, but yeah, that's something. Maybe, maybe we'll see. Yeah. So number two is, um, turning meal time into like brain quality time. Uh, this is really an interesting concept because, um, you can replace one of their meals with like a puzzle or a, um, they make something called a snuffle mat. Oh, yeah. I've heard of those. And then the other is, I, when I was at, um, CMEL cat conference in Seattle, there was a woman there that sold these little cat balls that you put their, uh, they're not really highly processed, but air dried or when they were chibble in there. Notice how I saw that. I liked it. And they, they knocked the ball around and then as they knocked the ball around, pieces of kibble falling. So it's good enrichment for their brain. Exactly, exactly. Um, sometimes people will rotate their feeders, um,

2:04so they, you know, so they don't get stale in one place. But another thing I really love for cats is, um, and this has to happen if you don't have a dog or if you don't have, you know, well, if you have other cats, it's okay. But you actually can put their food in a couple different places in the house. Yes. I like that. That's so cute. Yeah. So they can scapegoat your hunt and look for them and it really can make a big difference. So that's, uh, it's a really neat, you know, number two option, uh, for, for our kinds. I really think that I think I will start doing that because I think you would really enjoy it. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. So three is increasing interactive time. Um, the reason why, um, is that, you know, our cats need to move and need to play. And a lot of times some of our cat owners feel like, well, you know, it's a very independent animal. I don't really need to do much. I can just sit around and do it stuff. No, that doesn't work. You know, so, um, I like to tell people if you could schedule in about 10 or 15 minutes of play time, this is amazing. So things like, uh, bottle caps, aluminum silver ball. Oh,

3:07he loves those catnip toys. Uh, these are all really, really cool. And then if you could follow up with a small treat or, uh, something that they really like, uh, that works great because not highly processed. Not really. Thank you, dear. Uh, they really like, uh, to win at the end of this game. So you can have it. Personally, I stalk my cat. Like I get on the ground and I, he loves it. I promise. Um, we need a video of that, uh, maybe on the Instagram. We'll see. So that really makes a big difference in it. Really makes them calm or throughout the day, but also getting the exercise. We avoid that big problem with cat obesity. That's a good point. Yeah. That's not even, I didn't even consider that. I was thinking more enrichment and that connection for the human animal bond. But that's also a good point for the weight loss. Obesities is huge problem in our cat. It is. Uh, so yeah, we really want to make sure we do that. Um, we also talked about this in another podcast, but optimizing the litter box. So making sure that the box is its own, making sure that it's in a quiet, you know, place where it's not interfering with other cats.

4:10Olivia so wonderfully elucidated in this other podcast that when you have multiple cats, you always have the amount of litter boxes per cats plus one. So that there's another one that goes on. Uh, that makes a big, big difference because you told me and I, and I have taken this with me that cats are very private creatures. So they like to have their own spaces to do what they need to do without being interrupted, which honestly makes sense. I mean, I'm the same way. You know, we want to avoid cat not using litter box and spraying and stuff like that. That gets to be a huge problem, especially with multiple cat households. Exactly. So that really helps. And then, you know, a lot of times I like the litter boxes uncovered. I do like litter robots. I think they work great. They're a little bit covered, but they're still pretty open. So that works really, really well. You know, scoop daily, change weekly. That's my comment about the litter. I like that. That's a good rule. Change weekly. We should make that our slogan. I love that. We'll do that. So, and then, you know, a lot of things we also, I like switching off of clay

5:11litter because they're very dusty. We have a lot of cats that do get asthma. I'm looking at this really cool litter by Lady Ann called. It's a tofu base litter, which is human grade food, which I actually already have started implementing. So we're getting through this list. We love it. So that really works well. And then the last thing is improving their century enrichment. And when we talk about that, we're basically talking about like rotating their toys, making sure that they have cat safe plants. We talked about the plant greens, which really work really, really well. And, you know, like a bird feeder outside the window, we do that at our feline focus cat only practice here and two signs. And I stole that idea. And now I have an outside window. I love that as an example. They do. I think it actually really helps calm them down as well. Oh, no question, no question. And then you can play calming things like just cat TV that you can actually put on and stuff like that or nature sounds. You know, always using bird sounds can always can always work

6:15out well. So just another little tip. So I think those are five really good things in 2026 and really improve your life and your cat's life to truly make it the year of the cat. There we go. There we go. We're going to do that. I think we will. Well, thank you guys for joining us. If you have any questions, I know this was my own, but please feel free to add them to the Instagram or the YouTube channel or even Dr. Randy's website. It's all going to be a Dr. Randy pet that across the board is so easy to find. If you want to follow my vet school journey and see my crazy cat. Absolutely. I'm it's at Dr. Sachi S-A-C-C-I. So thank you guys so much. Thanks for joining us guys. Talk to you soon. Like it? Share it. Subscribe so you don't miss what your pet might be trying to tell you.