Dr. Katie Hankins has been a veterinarian for nearly 30 years, and much of that time she’s spent on behavioral medicine, where the root issue usually turns out to be unmet needs rather than a “bad” animal. Joining Stacy from Sydney, Australia, Katie argues that we’ve gotten the idea of enrichment backward. We treat it as an optional extra, like icing on a cupcake, when it’s really about recognizing that we’ve brought a completely different species into our homes and asking what that species needs to thrive.

For cats, that means scratching surfaces, vertical space, room to get away from housemates, and food that takes some work to get. Katie walks through five categories of enrichment (physical, social, dietary, sensory, and cognitive) and explains why indoor cats in particular need us to curate their world. Stressed cats don’t announce it. Instead they turn up at the vet with urinary problems, over-grooming, or gut issues. She also covers practical feeding advice for both indoor cats and TNR colonies, plus why food and water bowls shouldn’t sit side by side.

Litter boxes get a thorough look, too. Katie explains why litter box trouble is such an avoidable reason cats end up in shelters, why three boxes lined up in a row count as just one, and why she’d happily ban long-lasting crystal litter. She shares a recent home visit where a narrow hallway turned into contested territory between two cats, and how a few shelves solved it. Finally, she introduces Savvy Enrichment, an app she built to make daily enrichment easy instead of one more thing to feel guilty about.

• The five big categories of enrichment and where cat owners most often go wrong
• Feeding advice for TNR colony cats and indoor cats, including whisker fatigue
• The litter box formula: how many boxes, where to put them, and which litter to avoid
• How vertical space can turn a small apartment into a cat playground
• How the Savvy Enrichment app generates daily activity ideas for your cat

Resources & Links

• Savvy Enrichment
• Savvy Enrichment on Instagram
• Savvy Enrichment on Facebook
• Savvy Enrichment on YouTube