Cats navigate using their whiskers and experience stress when their environment does not accommodate their sensory and territorial needs, affecting welfare in ways often attributed to personality.
Cat welfare design must account for feline sensory and behavioral needs that differ fundamentally from human intuitions. Narrow food bowls cause whisker fatigue. Insufficient vertical space creates territorial stress. Single-litter-box households create resource competition anxiety. Small welfare design adjustments based on cat behavioral science deliver significant quality of life improvements at negligible cost.