Research overview: the five-pillar framework for feline environmental needs

Consensus veterinary guidelines distil decades of feline welfare science into five environmental needs: a safe place to retreat; multiple and separated key resources; opportunity for play and predatory behaviour; positive, consistent and predictable human interaction; and an environment that respects the cat's powerful sense of smell. This overview surveys the evidence base for each pillar, how unmet needs produce stress, behaviour problems and stress-linked disease, and how the framework guides housing in homes, shelters, catteries and clinics. It discusses practical implementation, from hiding places and vertical territory to foraging enrichment and scent management, and how the pillars unify otherwise scattered recommendations. The synthesis frames the five-pillar model as the dominant organising structure for assessing and improving domestic-cat welfare.