May is Mental Health Awareness Month! For those of us with cats in our lives, we know well the power of a warm, purring ball of fur curled up in your lap to reduce stress and improve mental wellbeing. Here are 5 ways you can improve cats’ mental health:

1. 5 Ways you can protect cats’ mental
health

2.  May is Mental Health Awareness Month! For those of us with cats in our lives, we know well the
power of a warm, purring ball of fur curled up in your lap to reduce stress and improve mental
wellbeing.

3.  It isn’t just our cat person bias, either. Cats are increasingly proving to excel as therapy animals for
people who face depression, anxiety, PTSD, and many other health and developmental conditions. They
are chosen to visit retirement homes, hospitals, schools, and more to bring their unique charm,
warmth, and a calming sense of normalcy to all who encounter them.
 Plus, people caring for outdoor cats know how enjoyable and peaceful it can be to interact with and
observe community cats in their daily lives with their feline families.
 So this month, let’s honor everything cats do to improve our mental health…by doing all we can to
improve THEIR mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing!
 Here are 5 ways you can improve cats’ mental health:

4. 1. Spay or neuter all cats

5.  Spay and neuter is the kindest and most important thing you can do for a cat! Spay and neuter,
especially at an early age, removes the stresses of mating, pregnancy, and birth from cats’ lives forever.
Plus, it can protect them from certain kinds of reproductive cancers and other diseases!
 For community cats, spay and neuter through a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program not only provides all
the benefits above, but helps ensure they are not impounded in a shelter. Shelters are incredibly
stressful environments that take a toll on every cat’s mental health, but especially for community cats,
who are generally not socialized to people. Additionally, unadoptable community cats are still likely to
be killed in the many shelters that still lack humane policies and programs.
 Cat mental health rule #1 is spay and neuter, ASAP!

6. 2. Enrich your cat’s everyday experience

7.  If there is something many of us learned in recent years, it’s that spending a lot of time inside can lead
to a whole lot of boredom and ennui. Let’s make sure our indoor cats have plenty of activities and the
right environment to challenge their minds and tap into their instincts!
 Enrichment not only stimulates a cat mentally, but also has great physical benefits—staving off obesity
and other health risks.
 Invest in or create your own food or treat puzzle for cats to solve. Make sure cats have plenty of toys to
run, pounce and chase and consider some cat grass for them to chew on. To give them a taste of the
outdoors, try playing nature videos on a tablet or TV. To go even further, build a shelf or place a cat tree
near a window so the cats can see out. If you really want to take it to the next level, you can even build
a catio!
 For community cats, building an outdoor shelter is a great way to ensure they have a safe, comfortable
place to rest. You can also customize their outdoor home to give them enriching ways to play and
hide! We have some ideas you can try here.

8. 3. Microchip every cat

9.  As we said above, animal shelters are incredibly stressful environments for cats, from cramped living
spaces to the unfamiliar and overwhelming sights, sounds, and smells. It’s important to make every
effort to keep cats out of shelters and with the families who love them—human or feline.
 That’s why MICROCHIPPING is so critical! This tiny technology is the size of a grain of rice but has the
power to reunite a cat with her family—and save her life! Microchipping our cats and registering the
chip with our information is the best way to protect a cat should she ever be lost or picked up by animal
control. A quick scan and she’s on her way home!
 Yes, community cats can also be microchipped as part of a TNR program! Register the chip with your
information as their caregiver or with the information of the TNR group or rescue.
 Protecting physical health—check. Protecting the emotional and mental health of cats and their
families—double check!

10. 4. Protect cats from declawing

11.  Since 1990, Alley Cat Allies has advocated to ban cat declawing all around the nation and the world and
shared the truth of what this cruel procedure really entails. We’ve rallied advocates to support the
successful bans on declawing in New York, Maryland, and cities across the country—but there is still far
more work to do.
 The truth is that declawing is far from a nail trim. It is the surgical amputation of the last joints of a cat’s
toes and is virtually always nontherapeutic, meaning it has no medical benefit. In fact, declawing can
cause permanent physical and mental harm to cats.
 The pain and discomfort of the procedure inhibits many of cats’ natural behaviors like scratching and
climbing. Without their claws, cats can also feel unsafe and experience issues with walking and
balancing. Declawed cats are often in so much pain that they avoid the litter box or bite to defend
themselves. These are two of the most common reasons cats are taken to animal shelters, where the
majority will be killed.

12.  To protect cats mentally and physically, declawing must come to an end. Join us to advocate for
worldwide declaw bans, and to defend those that are under attack. When we learn that a declaw ban
bill is on the table, we share how you can take action in support in our Action Center.

13. 5. Learn how to “speak cat”

14.  If we want to give back all the mental and emotional support cats give us, the best way to do so is to
understand the “language” of cats! Cats have unique ways of communicating how they feel and how
their day is going. Some of those tells can only be truly understood by other cats, but there are plenty
of signs we humans can look out for!
 Not only can a crash course in cat communication help you meet the mental and emotional health
needs of your cat, you can also catch physical problems early when you’re on the lookout for changes
from their normal behavior. Connecting with a cat on her terms is like speaking her love language!
 Our Cat Behavior Webinar series and our Visual Guide to Cat Body Language will give you some
valuable insight into how to “speak cat.” You can also learn the unique ways cats interact with us in our
in-depth Cat Socialization Continuum Guide.