Creative exercise ideas

Anyone got any good ideas/suggestions about how to exercise an overweight,
relatively inactive cat? It's time to knuckle down and get our recently
adopted 3 year old cat fit. She has supervised outings outside and I play
with her when I can but she's not always all that motivated to move far to
chase toys. Her fav toy is feathers on a string, so the obvious thing is to
play with her with that as much as possible, but I'm wondering if anyone's
got any cat motivating ideas? I've also thought about feeding her meals a
few bits of food at a time at opposite ends of the house so she hoons back
and forth to get them - but realistically I'm not likely to have the
energy/motivation to do this *every* night so I'm looking for as many ideas
as possible that might contribute to some muscle tone and flab loss. She's
not hugely overweight, but she feels more like she's made of custard than
muscle. I'd love to get her strong and fit enough to climb trees with our
other cat...

Thanks for any ideas!

Purplecat

Forgot to point out - the toys we give the cats are limited by the fact we
have a dog that will pick up odd items she finds on the floor, so we don't
like to give them anything that would be an obvious choking hazard to the
dog... The cats have their own room that the dog can't get into, but they
tend to bring out any toys they're given so the restriction still applies...
This means things like rubber bouncy balls are more or less out of the
question unfortunately.

P


"Purplecat" wrote in message
u...
Anyone got any good ideas/suggestions about how to exercise an overweight,
relatively inactive cat? It's time to knuckle down and get our recently
adopted 3 year old cat fit. She has supervised outings outside and I play
with her when I can but she's not always all that motivated to move far to
chase toys. Her fav toy is feathers on a string, so the obvious thing is
to
play with her with that as much as possible, but I'm wondering if anyone's
got any cat motivating ideas? I've also thought about feeding her meals a
few bits of food at a time at opposite ends of the house so she hoons back
and forth to get them - but realistically I'm not likely to have the
energy/motivation to do this *every* night so I'm looking for as many
ideas
as possible that might contribute to some muscle tone and flab loss. She's
not hugely overweight, but she feels more like she's made of custard than
muscle. I'd love to get her strong and fit enough to climb trees with our
other cat...

Thanks for any ideas!

Purplecat

Forgot to point out - the toys we give the cats are limited by the fact we
have a dog that will pick up odd items she finds on the floor, so we don't
like to give them anything that would be an obvious choking hazard to the
dog... The cats have their own room that the dog can't get into, but they
tend to bring out any toys they're given so the restriction still applies...
This means things like rubber bouncy balls are more or less out of the
question unfortunately.

P


"Purplecat" wrote in message
u...
Anyone got any good ideas/suggestions about how to exercise an overweight,
relatively inactive cat? It's time to knuckle down and get our recently
adopted 3 year old cat fit. She has supervised outings outside and I play
with her when I can but she's not always all that motivated to move far to
chase toys. Her fav toy is feathers on a string, so the obvious thing is
to
play with her with that as much as possible, but I'm wondering if anyone's
got any cat motivating ideas? I've also thought about feeding her meals a
few bits of food at a time at opposite ends of the house so she hoons back
and forth to get them - but realistically I'm not likely to have the
energy/motivation to do this *every* night so I'm looking for as many
ideas
as possible that might contribute to some muscle tone and flab loss. She's
not hugely overweight, but she feels more like she's made of custard than
muscle. I'd love to get her strong and fit enough to climb trees with our
other cat...

Thanks for any ideas!

Purplecat

Once upon a time someone suggested feeding an overweight cat at the top of a
ladder.

"Purplecat" wrote in message
u...
Anyone got any good ideas/suggestions about how to exercise an overweight,
relatively inactive cat? It's time to knuckle down and get our recently
adopted 3 year old cat fit. She has supervised outings outside and I play
with her when I can but she's not always all that motivated to move far to
chase toys. Her fav toy is feathers on a string, so the obvious thing is
to
play with her with that as much as possible, but I'm wondering if anyone's
got any cat motivating ideas? I've also thought about feeding her meals a
few bits of food at a time at opposite ends of the house so she hoons back
and forth to get them - but realistically I'm not likely to have the
energy/motivation to do this *every* night so I'm looking for as many
ideas
as possible that might contribute to some muscle tone and flab loss. She's
not hugely overweight, but she feels more like she's made of custard than
muscle. I'd love to get her strong and fit enough to climb trees with our
other cat...

Thanks for any ideas!

Purplecat

Once upon a time someone suggested feeding an overweight cat at the top of a
ladder.

"Purplecat" wrote in message
u...
Anyone got any good ideas/suggestions about how to exercise an overweight,
relatively inactive cat? It's time to knuckle down and get our recently
adopted 3 year old cat fit. She has supervised outings outside and I play
with her when I can but she's not always all that motivated to move far to
chase toys. Her fav toy is feathers on a string, so the obvious thing is
to
play with her with that as much as possible, but I'm wondering if anyone's
got any cat motivating ideas? I've also thought about feeding her meals a
few bits of food at a time at opposite ends of the house so she hoons back
and forth to get them - but realistically I'm not likely to have the
energy/motivation to do this *every* night so I'm looking for as many
ideas
as possible that might contribute to some muscle tone and flab loss. She's
not hugely overweight, but she feels more like she's made of custard than
muscle. I'd love to get her strong and fit enough to climb trees with our
other cat...

Thanks for any ideas!

Purplecat

From: "Betsy" -0

Once upon a time someone suggested feeding an overweight cat at the top of a
ladder.

Or you could try putting the food at the top of a cat tree.

Lauren
________
See my cats: http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm

From: "Betsy" -0

Once upon a time someone suggested feeding an overweight cat at the top of a
ladder.

Or you could try putting the food at the top of a cat tree.

Lauren
________
See my cats: http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm