Thinking Out Of The Box

By Anita Kelsey – accredited cat behaviourist – www.catnips.co.uk

I spend many hours scouring the internet for ideas on ‘catifying’ clients’ homes and always finish my sessions inspired by the fantastic ideas cat-carers come up with. People are now beginning to realise the importance of a cat’s home environment, especially cats that are kept exclusively indoors.

Kiki in Wasdale, Lake District

I have two Norwegian Forest Cats who are lead-trained, but don’t have free access to the outside. Although they get plenty of walks everyday and go on more holidays than my friends, I still want the space we all share to work for them as cats and this means plenty of high spots to climb on.

Before I show you the project we have started let me introduce you to our two beautiful cats:

Zaza just born

Zaza a few months old

Zaza 4 years old

And last but not least Kiki below!

Kiki just born

Kiki a few months old

Kiki aged 4

Norwegian Forests love to climb and with space being a premium in a modest-sized urban flat, cat-carers really need to think out of the box to make their kitties content. We have two large floor to ceiling climbers in our living room which eventually we would like to link up via walkways on the wall, but for now we are enjoying our wall space and have decided instead to start on the hallway. The walkways in the hallway will eventually lead out into the porch area which has been earmarked for the cats. Oh, and a couple of human bikes!

So let me tell you about my husband’s idea. As much as I would like to take credit for the first part of this project, it was his idea to make holes in our cupboards so that the kits could climb through.

Kitchen end of the hallway

On the right we have a large cat climber and on top of the doorway, to the left of the door, we have one small and one larger Ikea shelf. The larger Ikea shelf leads to a hole we made in the side of our hallway cupboard for the kits to climb through onto the top of the cupboards. Confused? keep scrolling 😉

Hole into side of cupboard

The kits find the hole very intriguing to climb into, like a secret passageway. Of course, I had to clear out some of my junk to allow them clear access! The hole was necessary because of pipes running crosswise overhead, stopping a free run all the way along the top.

This is inside the cupboard where another hole was cut at the top so the kits could climb onto the top of the shelving

Once the hole was cut in the top of one of the cupboards the kits could run along the top.

Wall to wall book case and cupboards

These bookcases lead to the front door which has a glass skylight. Outside of the front door is a porch area already filled with two large cat climbers.

Phase two of our catification project involves the kits exiting through a catflap in this skylight, stepping down onto these climbers.

The walkway will also stop Kiki guarding the only cat flap we have so far, which is in the bottom of our front door. Kiki tends to sit in this spot and stops Zaza from coming through the flap. With the new walkway in place Zaza can sneakily climb up and over Kiki.

It was good to get rid of stuff I had hoarded over the years. Most of it was junk and was piled high on top of the bookcases. I cleared away the lot to make space for our cats!

Watch this post! It’s my job to design phase 2 😉

For any further advice regarding catifying your home, or any other cat-related issues you may wish to ask advice about, please don’t hesitate to contact info@catnips.co.uk

Help is always on hand.

www.catnips.co.uk