In this article on our site, we will explain How to make a homemade cat gym. It is very important that we provide our cat, whatever your age, the opportunity to exercise and develop activities according to your nature.
This is necessary to ensure both physical and psychological well -being, avoiding stress and overweight problems, very common, especially in cats that live inside. Here are some ideas to keep all kinds of cats active.
Why make a home gym for cats?
First of all, before explaining how to make a gym for cats at home, some basic premises must be taken into account. A gym is essential as part of the environmental enrichment that should characterize every home with a cat. Cats are easily stressed when they can't perform their natural behaviors like climbing, jumping, scratching or running. In addition, they must have places to rest and quiet points for feeding and evacuation. The lack of these conditions results in problems among which urine marking stands out.
If you look closely, cats don't live like us or dogs on the ground, they climb to different heights In fact, they love to watch from them. Therefore, the cat's home has to be three-dimensional. The walls and furniture, for example, are part of our cat's home gym. You can even use the roof.
In this other article we explain how to play with a cat?
Wall Cat Gym
A home gym for cats is made with any element that comes to mind, depending on the space available, the characteristics of the cat and our ability, which is what, ultimately, will condition how to do it home cat gym These gyms can also be called wall gyms, because the vertical element is essential.
Just placing some wooden shelves, wicker baskets or boxes, for example like fruit boxes, we can make a good gym. Depending on the weight of the cat, these elements will have to be more or less resistant. You also have to calculate the size of the cat for the distance between all of them, so that it can go up and down from one to the other. The difficulty or complexity will depend on the characteristics of our cat.
Although we place them at a considerable height, the first step must always be accessible to the cat, from the ground or from a piece of furniture. It is recommended that, at least some part, is near a window, since cats love to control from heights. This would be the base to build our home gym. In the following sections we explain some ideas that complete this simple circuit according to each cat.
Home gym ideas for kittens
How to make a home cat gym can be easier if we still have a kitten, since, due to its light weight, we can even use s or cardboard boxes It is also a good idea to add a scratcher that we can make at home with a piece of wood or a roll of cardboard covered with rope or a simple doormat. If we hang it on the wall we are taking advantage of the space. Also, many cats prefer to scratch vertically.
Kittens are especially playful, so it's a good idea to hang toys that they can interact with. A simple sock filled with paper balls tied to any of the gym items will be a sure hit.
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Gym ideas for older cats
Although how to make a gym for cats at home when they are older is basically as we have already indicated, we may have to make some adaptations, especially if mobility problems have appeared. The cat does not usually complain, but we can notice that it no longer climbs to the places of yesteryear.
A solution to keep him in the gym is to lower the height of his pieces and put ramps or stairs between them that allow the cat to climb and get off comfortably. It's also a good idea to have a cushion or soft bed on your favorite shelf to rest on. If it can be close to a heat source, the better. Despite these modifications, if the cat does not use the gym, there is the option of laying it out horizontally.
Gym ideas for shy cats
By shy cat we refer to those less sociable cats that try to go unnoticed, but also to those that are convalescing and, on occasions, reduce their interactions or those that live with others and need to have of a calm and solitary space
For them, how to make a home cat gym follows the same procedure as explained, but we will add closed boxes, so that the cat can stay hidden. The size of these should be adjusted for a single cat and they usually prefer to be in the heights or, at least, camouflaged and out of the home traffic or the reach of children or other animals.
