hello my name's Jonathan i work for Cats Protection a charity that helps cats and kittens
in lots of different ways one of those ways is to find them new homes when they don't have
one of their own do you like my den i made this after watching last week's video Kelly had some
fantastic ideas about giving our cats somewhere to sleep and hide and i just had to try it for myself
if you don't have a cat of your own then you can make a den for yourself too
how do you think it might feel inside the den cozy warm playful hiding is a
natural behavior for cats and they love to hide even when they aren't feeling scared
and that's why i wanted to show you this today in this video we're going to be learning about
the second welfare need of cats understanding behaviour we'll be doing a scavenger hunt
watching a mini-documentary and making a toy for cats to play with
even in the depths of winter the territorial domestic cat observes his kingdom below
to ensure that no neighboring felines are trespassing on his lands reaching high places
is a crucial coping mechanism as it increases a cat's territory upwards and aids a feeling of
security hiding is equally important particularly when the humans bring in an alien beast to suck
at the floor the cat's survival instincts kick in and he retreats to fight another day
okay before we begin have you seen our moggy modules these are our home learning packs which
can be downloaded for free from our education website they contain lots of fun activities
to help you learn more about cats and their needs our website is filled with lots of other exciting
content too like games quizzes and crafts why not check it out when this video is finished
don't forget to share your activities with us via Facebook Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag
#themoggymodules. Right time for a scavenger hunt if you played along last time you'll
know what to do but i'll repeat the rules for those of you who missed out
today we're going to be hunting for cat activities things cats can play with
we'll reveal a list of items and you have to find as many as you can in and around your home you
can bring them back with you take a photo or maybe write a list to remind yourself of what you found
i want you to look for some string a soft toy a shoelace or maybe a piece of ribbon a toy ball or
a ping-pong ball and some feathers okay ready pause the video now and get hunting good luck
okay so you're back how did you get on let's look a little bit closer at some of the items
i asked you to find to see why they're important to cats now playing is really important to cats
and not just when cats are kittens but also when they're adults as well play is a really great way
of helping cats to stimulate their body and their mind they really love to chase things
particularly things that move in a really unpredictable and quick way
one way of doing that is by playing with your cat with a ball a bouncy ball will bounce all
over the place and the cat will have great fun trying to catch it or you could use something
simple like a piece of string or a ribbon or a shoelace and you can drag this across the floor
in all kinds of exciting ways and your cat will have great fun pouncing and trying to catch it
why do you think they love that kind of movement
maybe it reminds them of a tiny little rodent that they might like to chase and hunt
one of the best toys for cats is the fishing rod toy these come in all kinds of shapes
sizes and colors the really great ones have feathers on the end like this and the feathers
add to the really exciting movement that the cat loves to chase we'll be learning how to make one
of these later on in the video but learning about cat behavior isn't just about play there's a few
other things we need to know about too let me show you a picture do you know what this is
that's right this is a cat's litter tray we all need to go to the toilet somewhere don't we and
this is where a cat might go a lot of cats go to the toilet outside but there are some
cats that can't maybe they live indoors or maybe they're too young or they're very old
now i wouldn't want to go out to the toilet if it was raining or if it was cold outside
and i'd very much appreciate another option inside the home so do cats too the litter tray should be
kept somewhere nice and quiet and should be kept very clean no one likes a dirty toilet
the other thing we have is a scratching post these come in all sorts of sizes too from very
small like the one i have here two massive towers and activity centers that take up whole rooms
the best thing about these is they give cats somewhere to scratch
scratching is really important for cats for two reasons reason one is to keep
their claws in really good condition but reason two is to leave behind a special
scent that tells other cats that they live here and this is their territory it's really important
we don't stop cats from scratching because it's a natural behavior that's really important for them
but some cats might accidentally scratch the sofa or the carpet this might make some of us
a little bit upset but making sure that they have a good sturdy strong scratching post is
one big step towards solving this problem and you can find out more about that on our website too
next to find out more about cats and hunting let's watch a short documentary
in the vast wilderness of the spare bedroom we find the domestic cat despite interacting
with humans for thousands of years cats have curiously retained many of their natural instincts
including the need to hunt thanks to the latest and most advanced technology human companions can
now encourage hunting behavior in the home to keep cats mentally stimulated and help prevent
behavioral issues in this remarkable footage we see that cats are expert hunters showing patience
and stealth cats can jump many times their own height and reach speeds of up to 30 miles per
hour to catch their prey off guard and strike cats truly are a majestic and fantastic species
you're back did you enjoy that video learning all about cat hunting behaviours well now we're going
to do a craft and this craft is a fishing rod toy it's something cats absolutely love to play with
you're going to need a few things first of all is a stick this is a nice bamboo cane that came from
my garden but remember ask your parents permission first before taking anything from the garden
now that's our fishing rod we also need some lime so here i have a piece of string
and this string or you could use a piece of ribbon or even an old shoelace
is great for swishing around for cats to chase we also need some feathers
as we said before cats love feathers and these are some very nice ones i found in my garden
again you might be able to find some of these if you go out on a walk
or you could also buy feathers from some craft shops as well they might come in all kinds of
different fun colors lastly we're going to need some sellotape just to help us tie it all together
so to start we'll need to take our stick and attach our string the easiest way to do
this is to make a loop in your string and make a small knot just like that
and then you can thread your stick through the end and just pull it nice and tight
so there we have our stick with our string you might want to just for extra added security
tie another loop around there just to make sure it's nice and tight on the stick there we go
so this is going to take quite a lot of punishment from your cat they're going to want to pull on it
and tug and i can see that string slipping off the end very easily and very quickly so this is where
the tape comes in and now i need a nice length of tape which we're just going to stick over the end
and wrap around there make sure you keep just put another one on there make sure you keep the actual
string a long bit of string nice and free we want that to just hang off the end there so
there we go so we've got our stick with a string give it a good tug i think that will
withhold a fair bit of play excellent so now that leaves us with actually a pretty good toy
look at that we can wiggle that across the floor and the cat will probably have a fair bit of fun
just with this but we're going to jazz it up a little bit and we're going to add our feathers
onto the end to do that we'll make a loop just like before
and we'll gather up our feathers you might want to arrange them nicely make sure that the sticks
are nice and easy to get to there pop that over the end of your feathers and once again pull that
nice and tight and just like before i'm going to put another loop in there as well just tie that
a second time because our feathers are going to have the same problem as the stick
they might just come loose if we don't tie them nice and secure so
that calls for another piece of tape so i'm just gonna wrap that all around there
it's handy to try and keep it just on the stalks of those feathers and we don't destroy
the nice feathery parts of them there we go so there we have it it's very simple we have one
fishing rod toy and we have ourselves look at that a little fun toy that we can just twitch
along the floor and that will drive our cats wild they will just love to grab and pull that around
before you go here's another fun little variation that we could use
the stick that we got before has a nice hole in the end and i thought this would be
a really good idea to try out a different type of fishing rod toy so we can take our feathers
that we had before and we can actually transform this stick very quickly into another very fun
and exciting toy for cats so all we have to do is pop our feathers in the end these might
be a bit too many you might only want one or two but straight away we then have ourselves
a feather stick this isn't quite as exciting as the other one because we can't move it in quite
the same way but we still have those amazing feathers on the end and your cat would still
love to chase that across the floor so you can see how easily with only a few things we've been
able to make a toy for cats so you don't have to spend a lot of money in the shops to do this
and remember that it's really important to play with cats whether they're very young
or whether they're an adult cat and these sorts of toys are really safe for us to use because we
can have our hands at one end and their teeth and claws can play nice and safely at the other end
so give this a go at home use your imagination and see
what you can create for your cat if you don't have a cat maybe you could make a
toy for a cat that is in Cats Protection care or that a friend or relative owns
share your inventions with us as well use the hashtag #themoggymodules and
send us your pictures of your toys and we would love to see what you come up with
unfortunately that's all we have time for today but thank you so much for joining me
if you'd like to learn more about cat behavior why not check out our moggy modules they're free to
download from our education website and there's one for each of the five welfare needs of cats
if you've enjoyed the video today please tell us in the comments
and let us know if you've learned anything we love hearing what you have to say
join us next week where we'll be looking at the third welfare need the right diet keep an eye
on our Facebook page Twitter and YouTube channel to be the first to know when it's ready to watch
i've been Jonathan thank you so much for joining me here today and we'll see you next week bye