Placing a comfortable bed inside your cat’s cat house indoor is a good way to encourage her to use it. Since your cat might end up spending a lot of her time in her den, it’s only natural that her bed should provide her with an optimal level of comfort. The Maya Donut Cat Bed is a great option, especially thanks to its deep padding that will allow your cats to sink into the bed of their dreams.
Extra soft blankets
Before winter arrives, your pet will appreciate that you place a blanket inside its dog house. You can also install an extra soft blanket on your cat’s bed, inside its niche, to give it a more luxurious look and make it even more comfortable. Just like a comfortable bed, a cozy blanket can also entice your cat to come to its niche, making it irresistible.
Where can you install your modern cat house?
It all depends on your living situation and your pet’s preferences. Does your cat like to spend time with your family or does he prefer to stay quiet and out of the way in the room where his little shelter is?
When deciding where to install your cat scratcher house, be sure to also consider the ease of cleaning as well as the aesthetics of the shelter in your home.
In a quiet room
As we mentioned, most cats prefer to lead a quiet life. In this case, a quiet room will be the ideal place to install your pet’s dog house! If you have a room in your home that is not used very much by family members and that is not near a noisy outside area, such as passing cars or neighbors who may noise, then this room could be a good solution for you and your cat.
In the kitchen
Your cat may enjoy participating in family life. In this case, the kitchen could be the best place to install its indoor niche. In addition, if you store your cat’s bowls in this room, he can also enjoy them without having to move!
The living room
In the same way, you can place your pet’s shelter in the living room if the latter is not disturbed by the noise. Thanks to the contemporary and elegant design of the Petguin modern Cat tower, it will fit perfectly with the rest of your furniture.
The bedroom
Should animals be allowed in the bedroom? This is a question that comes up often with pet owners, but there is no single answer to this question. While some cat owners decide to exclude pets from the bedroom altogether, others happily fall asleep with their cats at the end of the bed every night. If you don’t particularly want to see your cat climb on the bed but would like to enjoy his presence in your room, you can try installing his indoor doghouse in a corner of the room. Thus, you will have the advantage of sharing a room with your cat, without having to clean the hair lying around on the bed, while each has your own personal space, a win-win situation!
The indoor doghouse is a fantastic idea for both cats and humans, although your cat may find it difficult to use it at first. The important thing is to remain patient and not give up, even if the method you use to encourage him to come to his niche does not yet produce the expected results. Hopefully, with some of our tips, your cat will end up loving its new indoor doghouse very quickly!
The territory of the cat
A territory is a space that has limits and which is occupied permanently or not by an “owner” for one or more given uses. The cat gives particular importance to its territory.
Why ad how does the cat assume rights over a living space? How does he organize it? The point in our article.
Definition of the concept of territory for the cat
The domestic cat has colonized almost all the ecological niches of the world except for Antarctica. It adapts to habitats and climates that meet its physiological needs.
If the living environment offers the resources necessary for its survival and reproduction, the cat chooses a space there that it delimits according to its needs. The territory must provide the animal with:
shelters to protect themselves from bad weather, to hide, to give life and raise their young;
sufficient food;
The teritory is divided into activity zones:
A resting area with hiding places for street cats or feral cats, or a clean and comfortable sleeping area for the pet cat.
An activity area: this is generally a hunting or exploration ground, or a meeting place for cats with access to an exterior. For indoor cats, the space is a place of conviviality, feeding, observation, and play. If the cat’s activity area is too small and too poor in stimulation, the well-being of the cat and his health is compromised.
An elimination zone: this only applies to indoor cats. It must be kept away from the feeding area for hygienic reasons. Be aware that outdoor cats who do not use a litter box eliminate wherever they want, never in the same places, but they urinate near places of passage and prefer loose soil for excrement.
Territorial behaviors of cats
To delimit its living space, the cat adopts territorial behavior: it occupies its territory, patrols it, marks it, shares it, defends it, and sometimes abandons it.
Cat: sharing its territory
Territorial behaviors change depending on the species. The peculiarity of the territorial behavior of the cat is that it is Spatio-temporal:
he has hours during which he wants to occupy it exclusively for a specific activity;
during certain times of the day, he admits that other individuals occupy him, he gives them his place.
Domestic cats are quite social and can live in communities without problems if there are enough resources.
Intrusion into the cat’s territory
To avoid intrusions from neighborhood cats, there are several methods:
have a dog to watch and scare off intruders;
put on a microchip-reading cat flap to prevent other cats from entering the house;
fence the garden;
do not feed your cat outside;
do not leave kibble in free access;
do not let your cat out at night to avoid fights.
For stray cats looking for food, it is advisable to feed them at the edge of the territory, in the evening, to prevent them from visiting your property and becoming ill, which could affect the health of your cat. Prevent them from having access to sleeping places.
The cohabitation of the cat and its owner
Territorial behaviors are sometimes sources of degradation in the house because some pet cats need to mark their territory:
Territorial marking is a means of communication: the messages are olfactory and visual and they must be visible.
This is explained by the fact that the cat shares part of its territory and leaves its congeners (rivals, sexual partners, friends) messages that must withstand the external climatic conditions.
The pheromones contained in the facial glands, the sweat glands of the toes, and in the urine are the information left for its congeners.
Urine marking is particularly problematic because urine is made up of odorous molecules that are resistant to our cleaning products.
Not only does urine marking leave an olfactory trace but also a visual trace because its acidity makes it penetrate all materials, except for glass and ceramics.
Warning: the urine must be cleaned immediately with a cleaning product that contains enzymes, such as laundry detergents. Rinse and dry to prevent urine from penetrating and damaging the support and leaving a visual mark (which you do not necessarily see unlike the cat).
The factors that influence marking are:
The hormonal status of the cat: an unsterilized animal leaves olfactory marks for a sexual partner.
The number of cats sharing the territory: even if you only have one cat, other cats are likely to come and visit the garden and the house in your absence without you noticing it, especially at night. Urine marking is a means of communication that cats use with each other regardless of whether they are friends or foes.
Stress: the source of stress is a change considered threatening or irritating that affects the cat’s positive perception of its territory. Health problems can upset this perception: the cat very easily associates external events with negative feelings caused by pathologies, which can create a feeling of insecurity in its place of life.
A loss of bearings: cleaning with leave-in products or irritating cleaning products, perfuming the house with synthetic molecules can destabilize the cat, which is very sensitive to irritants: its territory is polluted and harmful. This is particularly true for cats confined to apartments who cannot escape it. Aggressive or marking behaviors may appear.
Trees and garden furniture are the main targets. You can protect your trunks by sticking adhesive bandages on them and by covering the place with a sheet of cork, if a possible virgin, well fixed. The cat will thus be able to continue to mark the spot without damaging the trees. Some cats avoid areas sprayed with repellent.
To protect your furniture, you must provide the cat with a place of substitution: a large, stable cat tree that you sprinkle with catnip (Valerian Officinalis roots or Nepeta Cataria flowers). Place his cushion or blanket on the platform.
Note:block access to the sofa or damaged armchair by surrounding their edges with objects that make them inaccessible: wedge the backrest against a wall, place a newspaper rack on one side and a side table on the other, or cover them with a cover. The important thing is to make invisible the marks left by the scratches so that he does not return to them.
Cats: do they change territory?
Adoption, moving, destruction, and rejection of a community are all events that cause the loss or change of territory:
The place of birth partly conditions the future life of the cat. Kittens born to a mother living in the street or nature, with no attachment to humans, will not experience the same fate as those born in a human home.
Pet cats born in a house generally experience the first detachment during adoption. At a very young age, they are faced with a change of pace of life that they undergo. The owner takes over from the mother by offering them protection, affection, and food. It is only towards sexual maturity that they will put in place territorial strategies. Pet cats are often forced to change territory when moving house, but they adapt very well to it.
Pet cats that were born and lived outdoors will find it difficult to adapt to apartment living. A natural territory has an area of activities incomparably richer than that of an apartment. This change in the quality of territory is a source of discomfort.
Concerning stray cats or herts, which do not leave their place of birth at a young age, their territory gravitates around this center and expands as the cats become autonomous:
These cats must often integrate into an already formed community and find their place there or else leave.
In the latter case, it is the mother who hunts her sons who have reached sexual maturity.
Sometimes the street cat is forced to abandon its space because the living environment is affected by changes that transform it, impoverish it, and make it dangerous.
If he can’t resolve it or has no choice, he will fall victim to illnesses caused by fights for survival and by malnutrition and will lose his life. A male cat without a territory has a life expectancy of two years.
For pet cats and purebred cats born in a human household, the latter is the center of their history, they guarantee their well-being and their survival. He is his territory. The notion of territory is therefore not the same as for human societies where territory is an affective and cultural investment.
We often read that the cat is more attached to its territory than to its masters. This statement is incorrect concerning pet cats and purebred cats and has become widespread because some cats return to their old home after a move, for example.
It is rather rare, and mainly concerns the cat which was born and has always lived freely in a rather large territory of several square kilometers in a village where it has relations with other congeners. They are often outdoor cats that come from the streets and have been adopted by humans who share their territory.