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Is your Persian pessimistic, your tabby taciturn or your Burmese bored? New research at UC Davis suggests you can improve your cat’s mental and physical health by using food puzzles that stimulate your cat’s brain and tap into their natural instincts.
“Before cats were domesticated, they lived in the wild where they hunted for food,” said Mikel Delgado, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher on cat behavior at UC Davis. “Then humans came along and took their jobs away.”
The study, funded in part by Maddie’s Fund and published this week in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, supports the notion that cats don’t just want to be fed, they want to work for their food, exercising their hunting and foraging skills. Delgado says owners should throw away the food dishes and put their cats back to work.
Food puzzles can improve a cat’s welfare by increasing mental stimulation. While there are no actual studies on whether those puzzles will help plump cats with weight loss, there is evidence that they could help with that and other issues. In 2016, Delgado co-authored a 2016 paper that presented case studies where food puzzles aided cats with weight loss, anxiety and urination outside the litter box.
Food puzzles come in all shapes and sizes, but basically, they allow you to hide a few treats, kibble or canned food in compartments that the cat must then figure out how to open to get the food.
You can help your cat if he or she struggles, but the study showed that most cats very quickly figure the puzzles out for themselves.
“When starting out with a food puzzle,” Delgado said, “it’s important to make it easy for the cat at first, so they can figure it out and not become frustrated. At the same time, you want to make sure it’s challenging enough that it provides some activity and mental stimulation.”
Part of the research included a survey of 3,192 cat fanciers, with 30 percent saying they used food puzzles for their cats on a regular basis, another 18 percent reporting they had tried them but stopped using them, and 52 percent who had never used a food puzzle.
For the 18 percent who tried the puzzles but didn’t continue using them, most of them blamed the cat, saying their feline was too lazy to figure out how to get the food or weren’t smart enough to solve the puzzle.
Food puzzles aren’t the only stimulation cats need, especially indoor cats that might get bored with their surroundings. Researchers said more work in that area is needed.
They also recommend that cat owners work with their veterinarians to come up with a plan for feeding their cats, but Delgado says there is no reason a cat couldn’t get all or most of its daily food through puzzle boxes.
