New research suggests that TV and a warm bed may be enough to keep these couch potatoes happy

© Carrie Allan/HSUS

For some shelters, gone are the days when banks of mostly bare steel cages served as ideal housing for cats. Environmental enrichment is the buzzword, and a growing number of creative strategies are helping to combat kitty boredom and stress.

Standard definitions of what constitutes environmental enrichment are still lacking, however, so researchers at the Iams Company set out to collect data about cats in their homes to find out what preferences their behavior demonstrated.

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science (Vol. 8, No. 3), included interviews with 304 indoor-cat caregivers. Almost all of the respondents (84 percent) reported that their cats use windows for five hours or fewer per day. Few caregivers indicated that this time was continuous, and no correlation was found between the number of cats in a household and the number of hours spent using windows. Only six participants reported that their cats slept scoop or rested in the sun, and this activity may have been in response to warmth rather than sunlight, as indicated by preferences for other warm locations.

The seven most commonly reported subjects of observation by cats through windows, in order of frequency, were birds, small wildlife, foliage, other cats, people, vehicles, and insects/reptiles. And the three top vote-getters for other fun activities? You guessed it: “cats played with toys,” “caregivers petted/cuddled/groomed the cats,” and “cats played with their caregivers.”

The study concludes that access to windows and sunlight may not be as critical to feline well-being as originally thought. Furthermore, alternative enrichment such as television, fish tanks, and heated resting perches may serve as good substitutes in facilities where window use is limited or unavailable. So don’t despair if your shelter feels more like an underground bunker than a solarium; a good dose of lap time and some interesting visuals could go a long way.