This is one of the most awesome things we’ve seen in a while! Monkey is a tabby cat that enjoys hunting and his owner turned dinnertime into the ultimate game. Ben Millam, Monkey’s owner, first trained Monkey to find and retrieve a ball using clicker training. Then, being a self-proclaimed tech geek, he built an automatic feeder that gets set off by balls being dropped into it. Every day, Ben hides little plastic balls around the house and Monkey sets out to find them. He hunts these balls down, carries them to the feeder and a portion of his meal drops out! Now Monkey gets to exercise his instinctive need for mobile hunting, which is the active walking around, exploring new areas and uncovering potential prey. Because Monkey is an indoor cat, he can now get the same satisfaction of his wild ancestors!
We highly recommend you check out Ben Millam’s page on how he trained Monkey to take the ball to the automatic feeder and how he built the feeder as well. He is a huge inspiration to cat owners and this really gives indoor cats a chance to unleash their wild instincts!