Play is an important welfare need of companion animals such as cats, who require environmental stimulation and social interaction to engage in species-specific behaviors and reduce stress. Despite this need, there are many reasons that guardians don’t play often enough with their cats, including a lack of awareness, time, or interest, or because of competing motivations.

Thus, in recognition of International Cat Day 2023, the U.K.-based charity International Cat Care launched a multimedia digital campaign, “Purrfect Play Every Day,” to address these challenges. The campaign was based on the behavior change wheel framework. This framework aims to discover barriers to a targeted behavior change, which then guides the selection of appropriate interventions to reduce those barriers.

In this case, researchers wanted to see whether guardians would engage in daily wand toy play with their cats. Wand toys provide an outlet for cats’ natural hunting behaviors, and daily play can improve their quality of life and the bond they have with their guardians. However, possible barriers for guardians include:

• Capability barriers: Being too tired or forgetting to play with their cats
• Opportunity barriers: Work and life getting in the way of playing with their cats
• Motivational barriers: Having difficulties making playtime with their cats a daily habit

Through social media posts with text and images or videos, website articles, and a downloadable poster, the campaign covered topics such as:

• Reducing behavioral problems in cats with play
• Using play to strengthen the cat-human bond
• Choosing the right toys
• Setting reminders to play
• Finding time to play
• Playing with cats of all ages

The campaign ran for the first two weeks of August. A pre-intervention survey was conducted in the months before the campaign began, and a post-intervention survey was distributed shortly after it ended.

The surveys asked for demographic information, including questions about people’s experience of cat guardianship, their cats’ normal behaviors, and in what ways and how often they played with their cats, with additional questions about the campaign itself in the follow-up survey. There was a mixture of question types which allowed for both quantitative and qualitative analysis.

In total, there were 363 valid surveys, with participants matched to their responses before and after the campaign. Over 60% of participants were European, while over a quarter (27.5%) were from the Americas. Most (92%) were female. The majority of participants (88%) considered themselves to be experienced cat guardians and close to half (43%) had just one cat at home.

Around 35% of participants reported that they played more regularly with a wand toy after the campaign, and a further 12% intended to change how often they play with their cats, which is a promising outcome of the study. However, the actual frequency of play across all participants didn’t significantly change after the campaign.

Knowledge of play and cat toys, on the other hand, was significantly higher after the campaign. Additionally, participants reported significantly fewer capability and motivational barriers, though opportunity for play remained strained for people.

Participants also noticed significantly fewer behavior problems in their cats following the campaign. However, the percentage of cats who hunted didn’t change. Similar numbers of participants felt their cats had a good or very good quality of life before and after the campaign, and most (82%) said their relationship stayed the same.

Most participants enjoyed the campaign materials (74%) and found them helpful (78%). This varied by material type, however, with 77% finding the social media images engaging compared to just 51% who found the website engaging. These results can offer guidance on the media types used for future campaigns.

While the study’s findings are encouraging, there are some caveats to consider:

• The voluntary nature of the survey potentially means participants already had an interest in cat welfare and so the campaign’s ultimate impact may have been limited.
• A more objective way to assess the welfare of cats before and after a campaign like this would better quantify the impact.
• Wording the questions differently might have yielded more comprehensive answers — for example, asking for more detail about how guardians were actually using the wand toy.
• A more interactive campaign, such as asking participants to keep a play diary or post their play sessions on social media, might have increased engagement and therefore behavioral change.
• A longer timeframe would help capture people who take longer to develop new habits, as well as provide more insight into cats’ behavior.
• Close to three-quarters (73%) of the initial survey participants dropped out, so there’s no way to know how the campaign impacted them or why they dropped out.

However, despite these limitations, the study shows that even a short digital campaign can lead to some positive behavioral change in guardians and the way they interact with their cats. It’s well worth exploring how to improve on the impact of such campaigns. Then, we can nurture our companions’ true nature so they can enjoy much more fulfilling lives.