Bored cat

[bodisha]

Hello... And thanks in advance for any suggestions anyone can offer

I took in a kitten in March that was approximately 3 months old... And while she's easily the sweetest cat I've ever known... All she wants to do is play... All day... every day! She's relentless and insatiable with wanting to play. She particularly loves her feather toy on a stick and a laser pointer, and only seems to want to play with toys that I have to use. She'll completely ignore all the balls, and other little toys scattered around my place unless I'm throwing them.

The problem is I work from home, and I can't devote as much time to playing with her to keep her happy. When I work at my desk, she'll start paw'ing at my arm to get my attention, and to let me know she wants to play (Which is pretty much anytime I stop giving her attention). Over the last couple months I've started to shut my office door to get work done.

Unfortunately, ignoring her like this seems to be affecting her, and she seems bored, and possibly even depressed. She'll jump on a chair I have in the hall outside my office, and will just lay there all day till I leave my office. It's getting to the point when I leave my office, she'll keep laying there. When she does get off, she'll frequently just stare off into space, isolate, and generally seems less interested in playing. With me actively having to tempt her into chasing after her toys. I try to play with her as much as possible but I simply can't devote my entire day to her.

I'm not the biggest cat person, so I'm not sure what's normal or what isn't with cats... If someone could advise me on how normal this is, or how to approach it I would be grateful

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi! Granting that she's undergoing a certain amount of maturing, the staring off into space doesn't sound quite right. When's the last time you had her in to see a vet? Is she spayed? What happens now, these days, if you let her into the office?

 

[Kingcocoa]

Kind of sounds normal assuming she is healthy. There's not much a house cat can do at home unless owners play with them.
You can get food puzzle and put in portion of her daily food.
start with easy puzzle then slowly raise the bar.

 

[bodisha]

Kind of sounds normal assuming she is healthy. There's not much a house cat can do at home unless owners play with them.
You can get food puzzle and put in portion of her daily food.
start with easy puzzle then slowly raise the bar.

Thanks for the suggestion... I'll see what I can find next time I'm at the pet store

 

[bodisha]

Hi! Granting that she's undergoing a certain amount of maturing, the staring off into space doesn't sound quite right. When's the last time you had her in to see a vet? Is she spayed? What happens now, these days, if you let her into the office?

She was at the vet right before I got her... So in March. And yes, she's sprayed. I kept the door to my office open for a few hours this morning and she pestered me for attention, and to play with her, pretty much the whole time. Which I did in between trying to work. I just shut the door before I logged on to the site, and I can almost bet she's going to hop on the chair and wait by the door.

When this happens, she tends to get sluggish and unresponsive, and will "mope" (For lack of a better word) around my place when I leave my office. When she gets like that, I have to coax her into wanting to play. Eventually though, if I spend enough time, she'll come out of her shell and will chase her toys and she seems like her normally happy self.

This is only the 2nd cat I've owned, and the first one was older when I got him and seemed content to only play a few times a day. So I'm not sure if I'm over reacting or not.

 

[Furballsmom]

There have been some other members with a somewhat similar situation, and they decided to let the cat in the office and then trained it to stay in a box or on a cat tree near to the desk/computer station. You could try something like this maybe?

 

[Juniper_Junebug]

I have my office in an open loft space that I couldn't keep my kitty from if I wanted to. I put a suction-cupped shelf on the window above and to the left of my desk, which is also a scratch pad. (It so happens that I already had a suction-cupped bird feeder on the other side of the window, so that was a bonus).

Kitty will spend much of the day there, while I work. I also got some string toys (best one was a plump chewable mouse on a sturdy bouncy string). When I'm between work or on the phone, I can passively toss it around, tug at it, etc., and then she'll spend minutes at a time chewing it. I am trying to collect more of these "semi-interactive" toys.

 

[bodisha]

There have been some other members with a somewhat similar situation, and they decided to let the cat in the office and then trained it to stay in a box or on a cat tree near to the desk/computer station. You could try something like this maybe?

How do you train a cat like that? Cat's have always come off as a very un-trainable animal to me

 

[ladytimedramon]

Sometimes it's the proximity to their person. When I adopted Delilah I was teaching from home. I had put her cat tree next to the desk and the window. She seemed to know that when I was working, the best place to be was napping in the cat tree or watching the birds in the window (I put out a bird feeder). Now I'm back on campus, but whenever I'm working at my desk she's in her cat tree.

There are some toys that are interactive for your cat that just need slight supervision and could be done while you're working. I had gotten on clearance a sphere that is battery powered and has a little butterfly on a wire. Delilah has no interest in it, but when the cat pushes it the butterfly flies around. There are also fake aquariums for cats to watch. I tried to get Delilah interested in a cat app on my tablet but she wasn't interested.

 

[Furballsmom]

How do you train a cat like that?

Set up a tree or a marshmallow bed, and when your cat asks you for playtime put her in the tree or bed or box and play a little bit. Do this every time, and she'll catch on that the tree, bed or box is a good place to be.