I had an apostrophe catastrophe today. Does the play belong to the cat? How many cats? How much play?

Play is an important part of keeping cats healthy and happy. This is especially true for indoor cats. Play mimics some of the behaviors that indoor cats no longer need to use, like hunting, hiding and feeding themselves.

Increased activity through play can also help prevent obesity, which can lead to serious health problems like diabetes and arthritis. We are recognizing that play and ‘environmental enrichment’ can help to prevent behavior issues like peeing outside the litter box or destruction of articles in the home (feline vandalism).

Some really smart people have written some great articles about this:

Here’s an article about figuring out which toys (prey) your cat prefers by The Ohio State University veterinary school.

The folks at International Cat Care want you to play with your cat and give some great tips.

And Companion Animal Psychology has done some research on whether a more interesting daily life helps to reduce behavior problems in cats.

After doing a little reading, I’ve decided that the apostrophe needs to stay at the end of the word because we want lots of cats to have lots of play.