Introduction: Pets Have Feelings Too
As caring pet parents, when you think of pet care, the things that come to mind are food, grooming, and vet visits.
But, just like you, your pets also have mood swings, throw tantrums, and feel sad, anxiou,s or lonely.
So, whether it’s a pet at home or a stray under the care of Blue Cross Pune, keeping them mentally happy and stimulated is a big part of their overall health.
What Does “Mental Health” Mean for Pets?
You may notice changes in your pets’ behaviour, indicating that they are emotionally distressed or disturbed, like excessive, sudden barking, destructive chewing, or looking for places to hide for dogs, and changes in litter box habits, lethargy, or excessive grooming or licking in cats.
Generally, a playful, calm, and curious pet is considered to have good mental health. While pets who appear scared, restless, or silent may be considered stressed or anxious, these behaviours are often linked to why dogs cry at night and seek comfort.
Their change in behaviour and mood could be triggered by loud noises like firecrackers, vehicle horns, and traffic, which explains why street dogs bark at night and feel distressed. While staying alone for too long or being in a boring environment with nothing new to explore can make them feel sad. Lastly, if they’re uncomfortable due to pain or a health condition, it can put them in a downer mood.
By observing these subtle changes in behaviour and temperament, you can address any possible emotional concerns.
Why Mental Enrichment Matters
Firstly, what is enrichment? Enrichment simply means improving your pets’ surroundings to positively stimulate their behavioural and psychological needs. It prevents them from getting anxious, bored, or stressed and promotes overall well-being.
Why Mental Enrichment Matters: Pets with adequate mental and physical stimulation are happy and calm. While pets that demonstrate negative behaviours (like chewing, barking, growling, snarling, or scratching) may be troubled, bored, frustrated, or anxious.
Mental enrichment helps to identify and tackle these issues by boosting their mental health, motivating them to play and be active, and strengthening the bond with their owners.
From providing your pets with rope toys to taking them out in the park, enrichment can take many forms. These small exercises can help them improve their mood and keep them mentally stimulated and physically active, too.
Simple Ways to Keep Dogs Mentally Happy
Whether at home or in a shelter, here are some engaging activities you can use with your dogs:
- Take them on walks: When on long walks, allow your pets to sniff around freely. Sniffing is a great mental exercise and stimulates their senses.
- Hide treats or toys: Engage your pets by hiding their favourite toy or treats and getting them to look for it. This makes them keen to do something different and enjoy a treat at the end of their hunt.
- Give chew toys: When you offer your pets a bit of rope or chew toys, this not only boosts their mental health but also develops a strong bond with your pets.
- Teach basic tricks: simple commands like sit, stay, or paw, as positive training methods that mentally stimulate dogs help keep their brains engaged.
- Stimulate the senses: Spraying scents like pet-safe herbal or essential oils can be soothing to your dogs.
- Spend quality time: Just like interacting with your family members, Talk to your pets, cuddle and pet them, just sit nearby to reassure them that they’re safe and loved. If you’re short on toys, even old cloth knots, old sock animals or bottles with treats inside can work as DIY toys.
Simple Ways to Keep Cats Mentally Happy
For home or community cats:
- Give them places to climb and hide: Cats love a challenge and are very inquisitive by nature. Make castles out of cardboard boxes; fridge tops and shelves or window perches also make for good places to climb or hide espcially adjusting after being adopted into a new home.
- Use interactive toys: Every cat enjoys something sparkly or shiny. You can use laser pointers, although for short durations. Feather wands, ping pong balls and colourful balls of yarn also make interactive cat toys.
- Play short games daily: Since cats get bored easily, it’s important to keep them engaged – short games every day keep them stimulated mentally.
- Make “cat TV”: Make a cosy nook on a windowsill or balcony ledge (with a mesh/grill for safety) facing outside. This gives cats a quiet yet entertaining place to rest or watch nature from a cosy cat perch.
- Offer scratching posts: Scratch posts or coir mats are excellent for cats to relax and stretch naturally.
For Stray & Shelter Animals (BCS Pune Focus)
Whether it is a stray, shelter animal, or a pet at home, all animals need love and care, which is why supporting and helping stray dogs in India plays a crucial role in their emotional wellbeing. Shelters can trigger anxiety and stress for cats and dogs with new sounds and smells in a new environment.
At the BCS Pune hospital, we advise a few low-cost and simple toys and activities that you could use to keep your pets physically and mentally stimulated.
Toys and activities
- Rope toys, boxes, old tires, tennis balls
- Safe herbs like lemongrass or catnip for scent enrichment
- Rotating toys so every animal gets variety
- Spending playtime with animals (just sitting with them)
- Brushing or petting animals to calm them down
Signs Your Pet Is Mentally Happy
Easy indicators for you to know if your pet is happy in their surroundings and family. A few signals to know that you’re on the right path to keeping your pets mentally happy and stimulated.
- They wag their tails, eat well, play and sleep soundly.
- They are curious and enjoy exploring new toys or places.
- They are friendly with humans and other animals.
- They show fewer “bad behaviours” like chewing or scratching furniture.
When to Worry or Seek Help
As pet parents, it is obvious that you worry about your pet’s health and wellbeing. But, it can get tricky when it comes to your pets showing that they’re stressed or depressed. Here are some signs your pets are subtly showing you that you can catch and address.
If your pets have a constant loss of appetite, they are hiding all the time. They constantly pace, bark, or meow. If they over grooming and causing harm in the process. They show sudden aggression or fear.
If any of these signs persist, you must consult a vet or behaviour expert — mental health issues can often be fixed with small lifestyle changes and medical support.
How You Can Help as a Pet Lover or Volunteer
If you’re an animal lover or volunteer at an animal shelter here are a few things you could do to spread your love and care to these adorable four-legged babies.
Spending even 5 minutes a day with stray dogs or cats in your area is all it takes to make them happy. You would notice the way they come running towards you when they smell you in the area.
Donating old blankets, toys, or bowls to shelters helps create comfort and enrichment, and ethical donations to dog charities support mental recovery for rescued animals. in their new temporary surroundings.
As animal lovers, choosing adoption over shopping supports why adopting stray cats improves emotional wellbeing for both animals and humans. All animals irrespective of their breed deserves to be loved and be given a stimulating and loving environment.
Volunteering or offering your time at animal shelters helps the animals feel secure and stimulated from time to time. Spending time playing, petting or brushing them, or just sitting calmly with them helps reduce stress.
Conclusion: A Little Play Goes a Long Way
Like us humans, animals have emotional, mental and psychological needs that can very easily be identified and treated. Just spending a little time playing, brushing, or sitting with animals goes a long way, as seen in real-life rescue stories where small actions changed lives.
The key to know a shift in their behaviour is signs they show through excessive chewing, meowing or barking. You don’t need fancy gadgets – a feather on a thread or a scratch post for a cat and an old tennis ball or an old sock toy for a dog is all that’s needed to keep them happy and stimulated for hours.
Togethers, let’s make Pune a place where every pet and stray lives not just a long life, but a happy one.