I bought a wide, low cat condo for my studio apartment because it looked substantial and the platforms seemed generous. My cat ignored every level of it for three weeks. Then I figured out why: the highest point sat four feet off the ground, and she already had that same view from the sofa arm, … Read more
I spent three weeks watching my cat avoid a perfectly good cat tree before I figured out the problem was not the tree but where I had put it: tucked against a back wall away from the window and away from where I sat, which meant it offered my cat nothing she could not already … Read more
The thing that changed my understanding completely was watching my cat go from pacing the apartment aimlessly to spending three focused hours on a new cat tree within the first day of installing one, as if someone had finally handed her the job description she had been waiting for. Whether do indoor cats need a … Read more
The behavioral difference between my indoor cat and the neighborhood cats outside her window became obvious to me slowly over years. The outdoor cats move differently. More coiled. More watchful. My cat rests in a full belly-up sprawl in the middle of the living room floor which no outdoor cat in active territorial conflict ever … Read more
The indoor vs outdoor debate comes up every time someone gets a new cat and it almost always gets muddied by guilt and sentiment rather than settled by facts. I watched a neighbor lose two cats to traffic in three years while her indoor cat who was the same age sailed into his sixteenth birthday … Read more
The first time someone asked me if keeping a cat indoors was cruel I did not have a good answer. My cat had lived inside her whole life, seemed perfectly happy and had never tried to escape through an open door. But the question stuck with me. I started paying closer attention and what I … Read more
The clearest sign I ever missed was my cat hiding under the bathroom vanity for three days straight after my sister visited with her dog. The dog was only there for six hours. My cat had been fine all her life. I assumed she was just being dramatic and gave her space. What I did … Read more
The vet visit that changed how I think about indoor cat health was not dramatic. My cat looked completely fine. She was eating, using her box and acting normal. The blood panel told a different story. Early kidney markers. Caught early enough to manage easily but only because we went in for a routine checkup … Read more
My cat sat in the middle of the hallway at 2pm on a Tuesday, staring at nothing. Not sick. Not tired. Just done with the day. That is what indoor cat boredom actually looks like, and it is nothing like the dramatic scratching-the-couch scene most articles use as the opener. Do indoor cats get bored? … Read more
How to make your home cat friendly starts before your cat ever walks through the door. I found this out the hard way. When I brought my cat home, I had already picked my couch, my rug and my plant shelf. She spent the first two weeks hiding behind the couch and I couldn’t figure … Read more