Few things are as guaranteed to get your cat’s attention as the shaking of the treat bag. But how many treats can a cat have?
While it’s obvious that your feline is all about snacking on their treats of choice, what’s the most responsible way to work cat treats into their daily routine? Here’s a guide to keeping your cat’s treat rewards sensible and appropriate.
Packaging Isn’t Always The Best Guide
As a starting point for feeding guidelines, I’d suggest scaling down the advice on the package. They aren’t always the best indicator of how many treats a cat can have.
The brand I use for my own cat recommends feeding ten to twelve treats per day — but at two calories per treat, that could be nearly 20 percent of an indoor cat’s recommended calories per day! None of us, feline or human, should probably be consuming treats and sweets as a fifth of our daily intake. Instead, I settle on around four to five treats.
Change Up The Way You Deliver Cat Treats
(Picture Credit: Getty Images)
It’s cute to have a cat eat treats out of your hand, and the tactic can help socialize skittish new felines. But I think there should be some work versus reward basis for earning treats.
To that end, I alternate between throwing individual treats across the apartment floor for my kitty to scoot after or placing them in one of her toys to exercise her little brain. While can be finicky about playing with actual toys, they’ll interact with most objects if there’s a whiff of a treat inside them.
Pro tip: Use an old egg carton to construct a homemade treat toy.
Another way to help stimulate their natural hunting and exploring instincts is to place individual treats on top of chairs or furniture. This way, they get a little exercise bump and stimulate their mental faculties before receiving the reward.
That’s smart snacking.
