Indoor cats face behavioral and psychological welfare challenges from environmental impoverishment. Evidence-based enrichment strategies support feline wellbeing in confined environments.
Indoor cat welfare depends on human-provided enrichment to compensate for the behavioral opportunities that outdoor environments would naturally provide. A cat confined to an unstimulating apartment with no climbing structures, no prey-simulating play, and no environmental variety is a cat with chronic behavioral deprivation — often manifesting as aggression, inappropriate elimination, destructive behavior, or lethargy and disengagement. The solutions are well-established by feline behavioral science: vertical space, multiple resting locations, prey-simulating interactive play, food puzzles, window access, and appropriate cat-to-resource ratios in multi-cat households. The welfare case for cat enrichment is not about optional luxury but about meeting the behavioral needs of an obligate predator that evolved for an environment very different from the typical modern home.