Training can be so much fun and so incredibly cute! Once you teach the basics it’s easy to build upon that and train all kinds of cool tricks, like playing a children’s piano! Training can be for purpose and for enrichment. Remember it is just as important to exercise their brains as well as their physical body.
fundamentally feline
Finn demonstrates “recall,” a life saving behavior to train!
Cats can be trained, yes it is true! One of the most important behaviors you could teach is recall or “come when called”. This could save your cats life if they ever got outside unexpectedly or were about to dart towards danger. It can also help you find them in the home when you cannot locate their secret hiding place. Please, do not underestimate your cats ability to train and learn!
The Nina Ottosson Dog Treat Maze
This is a very complicated food puzzle. It is two sided, features a maze within the toy on both sides and requires the cats to wobble or flip the toy entirely to dispense food. As this video demonstrates, not all hunting expeditions are successful. She walks away without success but that is ok, intermittent reinforcement keeps the animal doing the behavior! Practice makes perfect. Remember that novel food is helpful to stimulate interest and drive motivation. If your goal is weight loss or busting boredom the toys should be challenging and make them work hard!
Flower Tower by Trixie Pet
This is an intricate, brains over brawn, food puzzle originally designed for dogs, but that won’t stop us! This puzzle features four swiveling layers but access is only granted once the large base cones are removed. That is the challenge, the cat must do one section of the puzzle in efforts for the next to be revealed. All levels can be rearranged for constant variety! This is definitely a toy for the experienced forager.
The Snoop
Yet another toy designed and marketed for dogs that is great for cats as well. This toy can work for dry or wet food and can be manipulated to achieve different challenge levels, though as a whole it is a beginner toy.
The Boys’ Playroom
A panoramic view of the whole project!
As you can see from the picture above we are always happy to incorporate existing cat condos and human furniture into the vertical space design. We do not have any before photos but this was a new house, new construction and we basically had a blank slate to work with, so use your imagination! This room was decked out for two young boys who love to run and climb! They live with a senior female who was not so jazzed that new feline family members were added to the home. So the family rotates and time shares the house and when the boys are in "their room" they have a lot of fun things to do while the senior citizen is having quiet family time.
We build for all life stages, body styles and abilities. Notice that some of these runs come close to the floor for ease of access. Cats also cannot climb down the pole, they are not squirrels! These short steps allow them to descend.
This is Turbo! It took him a minute to warm up to the vertical space.
People often ask if their cat will fit in the scooped beds. Turbo is a big boy, weighing in around 15# and you can see he has snuggled in nicely.
Butters was on this stuff before Jake was finished installing!
Butters! He is a cutey and an athlete!
Notice the staggered shelves and ability to descend without disrupting one another.
