Bonding Tip of The Week: Keep a Routine

Hi everybody! Molly, with Cat Behavior Solutions, here with your Bonding Tip of the Week. This week’s bonding tip is: create, and stick to, a routine.

If you’ve been following along with these bonding tips, you know by now that your cat always needs to be in control—or, at least, always needs to have the illusion of being in control. When you create a routine for your cat, it makes them feel in control of their environment. Cats are wired instinctively to want this kind of control. That’s why they will carve out a territory in the wild and stay within that territory; things become very predictable in that space, making them feel comfortable and in charge.

The very definition of animal welfare: a kitty whose home life resembles, as close as it can, what their life would look like naturally, in the wild. So, in order to provide the best cat care we can, we make our home spaces as predictable as possible.

Establishing and maintaining a routine for your cat or kitten means making everything in their environment as predictable as possible—or, at the very least, the things in their environment that revolve around them, like meals and scooping the litter box. It’s helpful, for both you and them, if they can expect meals and a clean litterbox at the same hours each day.

What I do is, I feed my cat four times a day, and then give him a fifth meal in a timer. I scoop the litter box twice a day: I do it in the morning right after I get up and feed him, and I do it at night right before I go to bed. As a result, Pico knows there’s fresh cat litter two times a day, and his meals come on time every day.

Routine and predictability includes you as well. Make sure that you’re consistent in your behavior when you’re around your cat. You could be consistent for weeks on end, but if you all of a sudden get upset, screaming and yelling and throwing things around, it really upsets your cat.

So, if you can, keep things as calm and predictable as possible. Not only does routine contribute to holistic cat health, but your cat will feel much more comfortable in your home, setting the purrfect stage for bonding.

Until next time, keep calm, purr on, and keep things all ritual and routine for kitty!

Brought to you by Vitakraft, creator of the cat treats your pet is really into. For more cat behavior tips, visit CatBehaviorSolutions.org