Embracing My Inner Crazy Cat Lady - Loving Your Pets

For years, I didn’t want to be considered a “crazy cat lady”.  I have cats and I love them - but I would never be "that type of crazy cat lady".

For the last few decades, I have enjoyed having two or three cats at any given time. Yet, I hated the perception that I was one of “those” ladies. I believed a pet enhanced your life and your job was to feed them and love them, but not to turn your life around for them; they were just pets after-all.

I think I did an injustice to my early cats. I treated them well and spoiled them often, but I was hesitant to totally commit to being a great pet owner. I didn’t feel like I should change our lifestyle to better fit theirs. I figured my friends and family would visit my house and make fun of me for having a cat-friendly house.

Then, a little over a decade ago, my husband and I were lucky enough to attend some behind the scenes classes at our local zoo. We learned from the zookeepers that animals need more enrichment.  We hadn’t really heard that concept before.  As we saw the variety of ways zookeepers were enriching different animal groups, we realized that we were not really enriching our cats, we were just caring for them.

We decided to work on improving our cat's lives. We figured that if we chose to adopt them ... we needed to be better guardians of not only their health, but their mental well-being.

We lucked into a few cat condos at various garage sales. We moved our chairs away from the windows and put their condos at the windows. I purchased them a window seat that I move around to different windows in the house. We started rotating toys and boxes. We began making time to play string with them or teach them simple tricks.

We were amazed at the difference it made with our cats. They are more active than most of our previous cats. They seem to stay younger, longer and appear healthier. They are more engaged with us. They play with each other more than our previous groups did.  We comment to each other, often, that we feel like much better pet guardians these days.

From my cats to you … please, give yourself permission to totally embrace making your pet(s) a true part of your family. They deserve it and will reward you for your efforts.