Felines are notoriously finicky, and they often like their home environments to be just so. If you’re interested in harmonizing your home for cats according to the principles of feng shui, keep reading!
What is Feng Shui?
Feng shui is an ancient Taoist Chinese practice that “centers around energy flow and the ways items in your environment affect how you feel about your surroundings,” so it’s easy to see why this art of household arranging could appeal to cats. According to Architectural Digest, when you create a home using the principles of feng shui, you arrange furniture and decor “to promote health, harmony, and balance…to allow for proper energy flow that aligns with natural forces.”
Sometimes those “natural forces” are your cat’s well-being in the home and their expressions about how the home makes them feel. Cats who feel unsettled in the home may eliminate outside the litter box, refuse meals, scratch the furniture, and more. Arranging your house according to a feline-friendly version of Feng Shui is worth it to keep your kitty happy at home!
Why Create Cat-Centric Living Spaces?
Feline-focused interior design can help your pet live their best life in an otherwise people-pleasing home. While humans tend to live via the horizontal spaces in our homes, cats will consider the vertical as well. We will sit at a desk, then simply cross a hallway to stand at a kitchen counter. But cats will move down from a cat tree to the floor, and then up to a windowsill if they choose. They also sleep and play in places we might not even fit, like behind a couch, under a bed, or on a bookshelf.
Kitties will also do a fair amount of moving around at night, and rather than switch on a lamp like we might, they’ll rely on their great low light vision and on the air vibration and tangible environmental information they get from their sensitive whiskers. Cats can’t actually see in complete darkness, though, so it helps if they can be familiar with any furnishings or decorations that can create an obstacle. In the light or the dark, they’ll appreciate a good flow throughout the home as they move from perch to food bowl to toy bin to litter box.
And speaking of these different locales, cats will appreciate separate “stations” so that they can bird watch, eat, play, and eliminate in dedicated spaces. Cats prefer peace and privacy, especially at meal or bathroom times.
Cat Feng Shui Principles
While achieving an authentic Feng Shui setup relies on working with an expert in your home, there are some general ideals that overlap between Taoist beliefs and functional feline living:
- Declutter—give your cat ample space to play, exercise, eat, and even use the litter box.
- Position large furniture wisely—in a cat’s world, a perch or cat tree might be the focus of their everyday life, and it should not be crammed into a corner as an afterthought.
- Consider form and function—from the simple food dish to the entertaining catnip toy to the beloved bed, beauty can mean that your cat’s items are not chipped, torn, or otherwise damaged; this is important for comfort and safety.
Overall, the practice of feng shui “dictates where objects should be placed in relation to windows and doors,” so you would consider your entire living space, from front to back and top to bottom.
It’s not truly authentic Chinese or Taoist culture to try to create “Feline Feng Shui,” but you can set up a home space that is cat-friendly, which will make the entire household happier, too! If you’d like to ask questions about your cat’s home environment, Shiloh Mobile Veterinary Hospital can bring our veterinary care right to you. Call us today at (818) 614-9929 to set up your in-home visit!