12 Easy Ways To Make Your Cat’s Life Amazing
Let’s face it, we all love to spoil our cats now and then, especially in their senior years. Whether you have a kitten, a junior, or a senior cat it’s nice to know it is having a happy life.
Here are 12 ways you can spoil your furry feline friend.
1. Keep Them Healthy By Taking Them To The Vet
Let’s start with the most basic way to make your cat’s life amazing. Keep them healthy so they can live a long time.
That leads you to being able to spoil them for longer, and keep them out of the vet and getting pricked and poked.
These are important to keep your cat healthy and give it the greatest chance of having a long and happy life with you.
So you can continue doing the rest of the items!
2. Provide the best diet
While taking the cats to the vet is important to keep them healthy, it is only an annual checkup.
What you feed your cat every other day will help impact their daily lives.
Cats have different dietary requirements at each stage of their lives. Most pre-prepared cat food is labeled for a specific age of cat so make sure you choose the right food for yours.
Good quality cat food is developed with the correct balance of calories, protein, minerals, and vitamins for each life stage.
By giving your kitty the correct balanced diet for its age, you will be doing your best to keep it as healthy as possible throughout its life.
Then with the correct vet visits, you are setting up their health to be covered in nearly every angle.
3. Consider raised food bowls
A raised bowl allows a cat to eat in a more natural position. Many cats prefer to eat from elevated dishes, especially senior ones who may begin to struggle to bend their heads down.
Research shows raised and tilted bowls lower occurrences of vomiting whilst wide bowls prevent whisker fatigue.
Of course, we had to test out the theory and tried the raised food bowls.
Our cats absolutely loved them and not only did it help them stop vomiting, it helped their gas and they weren’t as sluggish after they ate.
You can get raised cat bowl food on Amazon. You can even get the exact food bowls that we got.
I would also recommend keeping a bowl down on the floor when you get your new bowls to make sure your cat likes them before you remove their original bowl.
You will also want to make sure you are careful with the type of material you use with the food bowl.
Ours is plastic, and our cats are fine with it. Some cats will have allergic reactions with plastic bowls. If that is the case, you want to switch to a metal or ceramic bowl.
4. Buy a lovely drinking fountain
Cats must drink plenty of water to maintain good health. Many cats love to drink from a moving source of water.
We noticed our cats like to drink from the sink and would sit on the counter waiting for us to turn on water.
If you have a cat that also likes to drink from the faucet and doesn’t seem to drink water from a dish then a cat drinking fountain is a perfect solution.
Drinking fountains are a great way to not only entertain your cat, but give them a new way to drink water.
5. Ensure they have enough litter boxes
There are many types of litter boxes available including open, lidded, self-cleaning, tall and low-sided. Some cats prefer open top trays and some like ones with lids.
Fortunately, if you buy one with a lid and your cat decides to develop claustrophobia, you can take the lid off and stash it away somewhere.
As cats get older, they may find stepping over a high rim a problem in which case, it could be time to invest in a tray with a lower entrance.
You want to make sure you get the right litter box to fit your cat’s needs.
If you are someone who really likes to spoil their cats, you can opt for a Litter Robot. A Litter Robot is a self-cleaning litter box.
So your cat never has to run the risk of a dirty litter box again.
Litter Robots are expensive so you want to make sure you are ready for the financial expense of a LitterRobot.
If you are not, the great news is that there are still a plethora of litter box options to suit your specific cat!
6. Supply the comfiest beds
Cats have a great talent for seeking out the coziest and most comfortable places to sleep. And sometimes finding the most uncomfortable location and looking completely at ease.
Why not help make your cat’s life amazing with their own personalized place to snuggle on during the day.
Everything changed for us when we got our cats their own cat bed.
Now the one that we got our cats is big and fluffy and they look like they are sleeping on a cloud.
But not all cats like that.
Luckily cat beds are not a one size fits all. And they are not a massive expense, so you can try and bed, see if your cat likes it.
And if they don’t, move onto the next one and there are plenty of shelters that would love extra cat bed.
Each cat is different too. So if your cat doesn’t like the beds you have gotten for them, that doesn’t mean they are unhappy.
Just means there are other comfy places they prefer to sleep rather than those beds.
7. Don’t Forget To Brush Them
A lot of people seem to think that just because cats groom themselves, means that they don’t have to do anything.
And that’s not true.
All cats need help with grooming, especially those with long hair. Grooming will help to limit shedding all over your house.
Start a grooming routine as soon as you get your cat and keep it up regularly, especially with senior cats.
Not only will this help remove loose hair for your furniture’s sake, it will also prevent your cat from swallowing too much fur and getting hairballs.
The best thing when it comes to brushing is to find a routine that works for your cat.
Phoebe loves to be brushed right before bed when everyone is getting settled down. That’s a routine that has worked for us and keeps us happy.
Wobbles has to be brushed only when she feels like. And sometimes that is in the middle of the day and the most inconvenient times.
(But Wobbles is spoiled and we need to do better at saying no to her. We aren’t perfect pet parents by any stretch of the imagination. No one is.)
8. Give Your Cats All The Toys
Most cats are love to play at any age. Make sure you keep a wide variety of toys available and make time to play with your cat every day.
It will love having play sessions with you and you will be ensuring it stays active.
Even old cats will play and can revert to behaving like kittens if gently encouraged. I’ve owned cats all my life so know exactly what toys work and more importantly, those that don’t!
Each cat is different so you want to find toys that your cat enjoys.
My parent’s cat loves to play with a long string of yard my mom will dangle in front of her. Currently I have two cats walking around my home with neon green earplugs in their mouths.
Sometimes their favorite toys are cat toys, and sometimes they are the most random thing that makes them happy. Regardless, if it makes them happy…then isn’t it really a cat toy?!
9. Give Them A Place To Scratch
The easiest way to make your cat’s life amazing, is to make sure you are happy. If you are mad at them, there is a slim chance they are going to be super happy.
And if cats are scratching up your home, there is no way you are going to be happy.
Scratching posts are a must and if you have room invest in an indoor cat tree. I love our cat trees because they have built in perches and scratching posts.
Cats love any opportunity to climb up high and the best indoor trees are sturdy and have spaces to hide, lounge, play, and scratch.
Be careful about buying a cheap one because it probably won’t be built to last.
10. Make sure it has places to hide
Depending on your cat will depend on if this is a place to hide, or a place to get away.
We only have one out of four cats that likes to have safe spaces to hide throughout the day. The other three, just like to have quiet places to call their own.
Make sure you not only understand what your cat likes, but enhance the space to make it perfect for their every needs.
Some great examples are a space under a bed (with storage boxes creating walls) or gaps behind chairs.
11. Don’t Forget To Give Them Attention
Cats are like kids. You can get them all the most expensive toys and food on the planet.
But if you skip paying attention to them, then the toys and food won’t make your cat’s life amazing.
Cats don’t see a dollar sign on the items you buy. But they do find a lot of value in spending quality time with you.
Whether that is snuggling with them while watching TV, playing with them, or just petting them when they are sitting nearby.
Contrary to popular belief, cats are not aloof and don’t like being alone so can become depressed.
Making a fuss of your cat, allowing it to be with you and playing with it are things that are essential for its mental well-being.
12. Keep to a routine
This item is last but not least, you want to try and keep to a routine as much as possible. Cats thrive on routine so as soon as you get a one keep it happy by introducing one.
Make sure you feed it at the same time every day and in the same place. Keep their litter box in the same spot.
Wobbles will start to meow for food at 8:05 PM every single day. Why? Because we feed her at 8:10 every day.
Phoebe will start to push on my head in the evenings when we stay up late because it is time for her to go to bed.
I know that keeping an exact routine can be hard, but doing small routines that bring your cats control and piece of mind help keep them relaxed and happy.
If we go back to the food example. Even when the cats were at my parents, they were calmer. Especially after they say that they got fed at 8:10 every day, just like at home.
Find your routine that works for you, and stick with it.
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Conclusion
There are a lot of things that you can do to give your cat the best life possible.
And while this list may give you ideas to pick and choose from, it’s totally up to you.
The best part is that no one will know your cat better than you.
Which means that you are the one that can try and understand your cat to give them the best life possible!
You got this! Now go make your cat’s life amazing!