Giving Your Cat a Great Life Indoors

0:00This is Birdnought. There is strong debate about whether pet cats should be kept indoors or allowed to roam freely. But outdoor cats kill billions of birds each year in North America, and they live much shorter lives than indoor cats. That's why cat behaviorists like animal planets, Jackson Galaxy, advocate for keeping our cats indoors. They wake up every morning, needing to go and kill something. So what do we do? Jackson says it's essential to enrich the life of an indoor cat, and first on the list is committing to a play regimen with them. Not just waving a wand around, it's about committing to the game. You're low play, you know, it's method action. You are a mouse, you are a bird, get into it. Just 15 minutes of play can make a huge difference in your cat's life.

1:00Next up is enhancing their indoor environment. We start with the concept of cat TV, make the windows a destination, put bird feeders near the window, you're giving them that ability to sort of passively engage with their raw self. It takes some work on our part, but both our cats and the birds are worth it. You can learn more ways to make your cat happy indoors on our podcast, bring birds back, sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Listen in your podcast app, or at birdnowit.org. I'm Mark Bramhill.