The importance of interactive playtime

Playtime is an essential way to keep your cat stimulated mentally and physically. It’s also a great tool to help your cat in a variety of situations: building trust, helping two cats to become friends, exercising, burning energy and for stress relief.

Try to maintain a regular schedule of interactive play – it’s as easy as 15 minutes a day – and take this opportunity to bond with your cat and find out their preferred games.

Anything light and soft that they can bat around will give them something to play with, pounce on and fetch. This doesn't mean you need to buy a range of weird and wonderful toys – a cat will often be as happy with ping-pong balls, boxes, paper (not plastic) bags or even scrunched-up receipts.

When it’s time to end the game, don’t just suddenly stop and put the toy away. Instead, wind the action down, in the same way you would cool-down after exercise.