Evidence-based enrichment strategies to reduce stress and improve welfare for cats in shelter environments.
Shelter environments are inherently stressful for cats because they combine confinement, unfamiliar smells and sounds, loss of territory, and unpredictable human contact. Without deliberate enrichment intervention, shelter cats rapidly develop chronic stress that suppresses immune function, worsens upper respiratory disease, and reduces the social behavior that helps them get adopted. The most cost-effective interventions — providing hiding spaces and consistent human contact — require behavioral training for staff rather than expensive infrastructure, making welfare improvement highly achievable even in resource-limited shelters.