Can cats be bored?

[mydoorisalwaysopen]

We recently got a cat from the local animal sanctuary (November). She is eight, has settled in well, very gentle with the kids. She has a cat flap but hardly ever goes out. She just seems to sleep a lot. She plays a bit but generally just wants to eat and sleep. Is this normal?

Quite normal if she's not exhibiting stressed/bored behaviour - after all she's getting towards being a middle aged lady now. They sleep a lot as a matter of course.

You might see a change when she becomes even more settled, the days lengthen and the weather improves.

(I'm assuming she's not overweight by the way. If she has been - say - starved or mistreated in a previous home, she could be a bit of an eating couch potato.)

She was stressed when she arrived - she had been in the sanctuary for eight months and her fur on her back legs and the base of her tail was very thin and she had really bad diarrhoea and was quite emaciated. The fur has grown back and she's been on a special diet and has put on about 0.5kg and no long has an upset tummy. She has never seemed frightened of us so I can't imagine she was mistreated. As you say, she is middle-aged so perhaps it's just natural at her age!

I wouldn't worry if her condition is improving and she seems happy. She might just be enjoying the safety and comfort of her new home - and would you go outside in this weather to just hang out if you didn't have to? You might see a change with spring and summer coming.

Oh - and well done for giving an older, rescue cat a loving new home. It's good to see.

Cats eat, sleep, groom and plot to take over the world, that seems to be pretty much it!

The fur has grown back indicating that her stress levels are lower than they were in the rescue - excellent.
Various studies have shown that normal cats sleep for up to 18 hours per day, that leaves 6 hours for everything else. From observation of all of my cats 4 of those hours are taken up keeping themselves immaculate.

Cats are phenomenal sleepers.

looks round front room at my four comatose furbags who went out fo oh all of ten minutes this morning yep cats sleep a lot