Why Does My Cat Like the Window Open? · Kinship Leave a comment

An open window can open an entire new world in your cat. Take into consideration their eager sense of sight and odor, their fascination with motion, the best way a chook or bug can spark their prey drive. Is it any marvel they love to sit down in home windows, smelling the smells, watching the sights, and having fun with all that psychological stimulation?

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Do cats get bored? 

Sure! Emphatically sure! Simply in case you missed it… sure! Cats can completely get bored. In truth, I’d wager that almost all cats are bored lots of the time. Take into consideration a wild cat’s life outside. They aren’t mendacity round, sleeping all day. They roam, investigating the completely different scents they discover alongside the best way. 

They’ll take a number of looking breaks. Cats can kill as many as twenty prey in a day. Which means they’re most likely going after twice that many. There are timber to climb, bugs to torture, and gardens to poop in. Cats are designed to guide energetic, engaged lives, utilizing all of their superb senses. 

One of the vital impactful issues you are able to do for your home cat is to supply a number of play and psychological enrichment. It’s unbelievable the distinction it will possibly make — from managing undesirable conduct (like knocking issues off cabinets), to calming play aggression, lowering stress, constructing confidence, and extra. 

Causes cats love open home windows

Let’s break down a few of the causes your cat enjoys an open window.

Hen watching

Why restrict it to birds? Let’s name it critter watching. Cats hunt birds, bugs, snakes, lizards, and rodents. If one thing exterior the window sparks that prey drive, your cat will lock in for a severely intense staring session. It’s enjoyable to observe something that strikes, prey or not, together with grass swaying within the breeze or a leaf falling from a tree.  

Curtains or blinds

If there’s a breeze, the curtains or blinds could transfer slightly, which might be attractive to cats. Additionally they make a great hiding spot. You will have observed your cat will spot a critter and rapidly sprint behind one thing, hoping to grow to be invisible, to allow them to higher stalk their prey. Curtains and blinds are good for this. 

Recent air and a breeze

Who doesn’t love a breeze? I do know you’ve had that second when the air hits your face and also you assume, Whoa! What’s that scrumptious odor coming from subsequent door? I want that for dinner!

Take into consideration your cat’s sense of odor. It’s regarded as fourteen instances stronger than yours — in a position to odor a meal from a soccer discipline’s size away, if no more. They should be selecting up so many fascinating scents within the air. That’s nice psychological stimulation. 

Bugs to swat at

Let’s face it: Bugs are like an amusement park journey to a cat. They may have a lot enjoyable poking, smacking, sniffing, and doing different admittedly terrible issues to that bug. Bugs inside are inclined to gravitate towards home windows. Bugs exterior usually buzz round open home windows and climb the display, making for good goal follow. 

Rain and condensation

Something that strikes might be fascinating to your cat, together with water dripping or streaming down the window or display. They might sit on the open or closed window watching and pawing on the drips. They might even lick the water from the window (which is why it’s necessary to make use of cat-safe cleansing merchandise).  

Standing guard 

Cats can get very tense, fearful, and even aggressive when one other cat comes into their sightline. That cat’s scent could possibly be coming in on the breeze. Only a fast sighting or odor of a stranger cat may trigger your cat to arrange a watchpost on the window. 

That is really an enormous set off for issues like spraying and redirected aggression. It may be an actual downside in your cat and the individuals in your house. 

Individuals-watching

Your cat could also be watching individuals cross by otherwise you working within the yard. In terms of the latter, they could get pleasure from interacting with you thru the window or hope that in the event that they make sufficient of these harmless child “mews” you’ll give in and allow them to come exterior. 

Rodent-watching

My cat sits on the window each evening, beginning round 9 p.m., awaiting one tiny mouse that runs the identical route throughout my patio, time and again, as he takes meals again to his den. It solely took one sighting for my cat to make this a part of his nightly routine. 

Watching so that you can come house

In case your cat will get excited whenever you come house, or if coming house means they get fed (duh), they could get pleasure from sitting on the window awaiting you. Or the sound of exercise exterior, as you arrive, could pique their curiosity. 

The right way to preserve your window safe and cozy in your cat

These are just a few causes your cat could love sitting on the open window. You can also make it simply accessible and comfy by including beds, window perches, a cat-specific heating or cooling mat, and even steps for older or mobility-challenged kitties to rise up there safely. However right here’s an enormous phrase of warning: A primary window display isn’t going to maintain your cat in. 

If a cat’s prey drive is triggered, they could lunge at prey with out even realizing there’s a display or drop-off exterior the window. Final summer season, I heard an enormous ruckus, bumped into the room, and located my cat shocked on the patio, seemingly not sure of how he received there, and the display door 5 toes away. He lunged at a chook and located himself immediately exterior having knocked the display door off its monitor. 

Cats leaping or falling out of home windows is so commonplace that there’s a reputation for it: Excessive-Rise Syndrome. I not too long ago had a shopper whose cat jumped out a four-story window when the neighbor’s canine bumped into their house and scared the cat. 

You could take precautions, particularly in case your cat isn’t allowed exterior otherwise you reside above the primary ground. 

• Safe your screens. You should use heavier, stronger supplies and screw the screens into the window body. You may solely do that on choose home windows, so your screens in different home windows are simply eliminated in case of emergency. 

• Use cat-safe display materials. It is a particular display mesh that gives extra safety towards cat claw harm or climbing. But it surely doesn’t preserve the display within the window. You continue to want reinforcement.

• Use a window safety gate. Very like a pet gate that you simply’d connect to a doorway, or safety bars, you will get fashions that connect contained in the window and might be eliminated simply. However be careful for potential risks, like bars extensive sufficient that your cat may get caught. You may add display over the bars for further security. 

• Do an internet seek for window baby-proofing and window safety screens. Most of the identical merchandise work for cat-proofing. Simply be sure that your cat can’t climb or squeeze via the protecting system. It must be secure for them.  

In case you take some security precautions, your cat can safely get pleasure from all of the fantastic issues about sitting in an open window. 

Bottom line

• There’s a ton of psychological stimulation for cats having fun with an open window, which is useful for his or her total high quality of life.

• Open home windows might be extraordinarily harmful for cats, even when they’ve screens. 

• It’s vitally necessary to ensure your window screens are safe, otherwise you’ve added different types of safety, so your cat can’t bounce or fall out of the open window. 

References

• “Feline Habits Issues: Damaging Habits.” Cornell College Faculty of Veterinary Drugs, 9 Oct. 2017, www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/health-information/feline-health-topics/feline-behavior-problems-destructive-behavior.

• Herron, Meghan E, and Tony Buffington. “Environmental Enrichment for Indoor Cats.” Compendium (Yardley, PA), vol. 32, no. 12, Dec. 2010, p. E4, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3922041/.

• “Preserving Kitty Content material: Ideas and Methods for Figuring out and Minimizing Stress in Your Cat Inhabitants | Gimme Shelter, MSMP Weblog and Information.” Cornell.edu, 30 Might 2018, blogs.cornell.edu/cornellsheltermedicine/2018/05/30/keeping-kitty-content-tips-and-tricks-for-identifying-and-minimizing-stress-in-your-cat-population/. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.

• ‌“Preserving Your Indoor Cat Completely happy | Orange County, NC.” Www.orangecountync.gov, www.orangecountync.gov/1332/Preserving-your-indoor-cat-happy.

• ‌Scandurra, Anna, et al. “House Candy House: The Influence of Life-style on a Cat’s Strategy to Unattainable Duties within the House Setting.” Animals, vol. 13, no. 16, 1 Jan. 2023, p. 2679, www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/13/16/2679#B1-animals-13-02679, https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13162679.

• “Each Cat Wants Some Leisure.” VMBS Information, 20 Apr. 2017, vetmed.tamu.edu/information/pet-talk/every-cat-needs-some-entertainment/. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.