Exercise for Cats

the 2nd Key to Taking Pounds Off Pets

An extra 20 minutes of exercise per day will help your cat lose weight and feel great.

Exercise is very important to our cats in many ways and is especially important in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. Exercise burns calories, increases muscle mass, combats ill effects of aging such as arthritis and it even makes your cat happy and better behaved.

Exercise will help your cat take the pounds off by increasing calorie burning. Increasing muscle mass through exercise can also raise your cat's metabolic rate so that he or she continues to burn off more calories all the time, even while resting.

Exercise is also valuable to a cat's mental health. Many people find that this part of the POP plan is not only great for weight loss but is also great for their relationship with their cat, improving their cat's mental state, happiness and overall behavior. 

The minimum recommended exercise plan for a POP is to increase structured, supervised exercise by 20 minutes per day or more.

All forms of exercise can help. Don't forget to count all the treats and food provided towards the daily Diet plan. Ideas include:

• Play with wand toys. Buy several different types to find ones that drive your cat wild. Many cats especially love Cat Dancers.
• Never use your hand or other body part to wrestle with your cat, as this encourages biting and scratching.
• Use a "laser" style cat toy. Always let the cat "catch" the light at the end of the play session to avoid frustration and never point the laser in the cat's (or anyone's) eyes.
• Walk your cat on a harness and leash outside, in a safe environment (make sure your pet is protected against parasites and FeLK if you take him or her outside)  
• Play fetch with small kitty toys such as mice or balls. Catnip infused toys are especially appealing.
• Train your cat. You can use small food rewards to teach your cat to sit, come and do cool tricks! Don't forget to count those calories!
• Provide your kitty with a Hunt by hiding his or her daily food allotment in small amounts around the house. Mini-muffin cups are handy for this. You cat will begin to patrol the house looking for food -- working out all the while.
• Use kitty treat dispensers to make your cat work for food. These dispensers work by requiring the cat to shake, jiggle and play with the toy for the food to fall out.
• Encourage your cat to climb, scratch and play by adding a new climbing structure in one of your cat's favorite parts of your home. Hide food or cat nip in different cubbies in the structure. Hide new toys & play with your kitty on the climbing structure. Cats love and need vertical play space.

* free time in the yard is great but is generally not active enough for weight loss.

Injury Prevention . . .

Keep String Like Toys Put Away. Some wonderful toys are safe only under supervision. Toys, like wand toys, with long strings need to be kept out of reach of your cat when you are not supervising play. Cat's scratchy tongues can catch strings and lead to ingestion of the string. Ingestion of any foreign body, but especially a "linear foreign body" such as a strink can be extremely dangerous and even life threatening.

Don't forget that a good restricted calorie diet is the first key to weight loss!

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