Food puzzles for cats: feeding for physical and emotional wellbeing

Dantas and colleagues reviewed the use of food puzzles, devices that require cats to work to extract food, as an enrichment and management tool. Drawing on behavioural research, they argued that food puzzles restore elements of the foraging and predatory effort that cats would naturally expend to obtain food but that bowl feeding eliminates, with benefits for physical activity, weight control and psychological wellbeing. The review compiled evidence and clinical experience showing food puzzles can help address obesity, reduce stress-related and attention-seeking behaviours, and improve confidence in fearful cats, while offering practical guidance on introducing puzzles and matching difficulty to the individual. It promoted food puzzles as a simple, accessible form of enrichment grounded in feline behavioural needs, and the paper has been influential in encouraging owners and clinicians to adopt foraging-based feeding.