Senior cats have specific enrichment needs that support cognitive health, physical comfort, and positive welfare as they age.
Senior cats experience a shift in their enrichment needs that owners often fail to recognize and adapt to. The same climbing structures, puzzle feeders, and play toys that enriched a cat at age 5 may be inaccessible, painful, or cognitively overwhelming at age 14. Adapting enrichment to accommodate arthritis - providing ramps instead of jumps, placing resources at floor level - maintains access to positive experiences. Cognitive dysfunction causes genuine welfare harm through the distress of disorientation, loss of familiar routines, and altered perception of the environment. Supporting cognitive health through appropriate stimulation, stable routines, environmental familiarity, and potentially pharmaceutical intervention for CDS maintains welfare quality into advanced age.