Tag Archives: House

Catipilla Cat Tree Climbing Frame : what a smart idea !

This is NOT a sponsored post ; we share this because we think it’s an interesting and useful quality product for cat lovers and their cat.

The Catipilla Cat Tree Climbing Frame is a fun and modular cat climbing activity system. It can be used indoor or outdoor.

Each element have been specifically designed with grippy surfaces, which allows cats to use them safely (length : 60cm / 23.4in. – width : 12cm / 4.7in. ). The platforms can be fixed at any height on the pillar, or directly to a wall.

But what’s the story behind such a cool innovation ? Here is it : “Our oldest moggy, Smudge, was 18 years old when she could no longer jump or climb into our window. Refusing to drill a hole in our door to accommodate a cat flap, we bought some wood, a bag of nails and set to work.”

Catipilla launched a Kickstarter Campaign on April 10th to support its project (deadline : May 10th).

A very nice room

Remember, last August, we replaced our old oil-fired boiler by a beautiful quite new gas boiler.

The tank with fuel oil was in a premises inside the house, and it was thus emptied. Claire and Momo decided to use this small room to put the reserves and a freezer : so far, they had managed with the tiny freezer department over the refrigerator, but it was a little bit small. We need a complete floor for us, and our humans had only one floor for them.

Momo thus took his tools, and he isolated walls and ground of the place. He made two openings in the door to put aeration railings because there are no windows, laid a stone floor, then repaints the door, the walls and the heating pipe.

Since his accident, he’s slower and gets tired faster, the works thus takes more time, but we are super proud of our human and of the result !

And it seems that there will be a whole drawer of the new freezer only for us !

How to occupy your cat and improve his well-being : how to increase the available space to your cat ?

Here is the last part of what we want to share with you after the training followed by Claire two weeks ago (part 1 : how to put food available in a way which increases the cat’s level of activity ? ; part 2 : which games and activities offer to your cat ?).

Reminder : according to a study of Bonnie Beaver (Feline Behavior, 2003), the approximate time dedicated to various activities by a free cat is the following one : sleeping 9 hours, resting 4-5 hours, bathing 3-4 hours, hunting 4 à 9 hours, moving and feeding 1 hour, other activities (game, marking, elimination) 1 hour. Numerous indoor cats are sub-occupied and spend their days sleeping to pass the time.

How to increase the available space to your cat ?

In an apartment, the available space is 10 to 50 times as small as the space that a cat would occupy in nature. Thus it’s necessary to increase it at the most by using the vertical space in various places of the house, by multiplying the accessible locations in height for the cat as well as the observation posts on the outside.

You can do it by adapting your existing furniture : summits of shelves or cupboard cleared, furnish near windows, wall shelves reserved for your cat, …

You can also invest in one or several cat trees placed in places where there is something interesting to observe.

An old or overweight cat will need additional landings, a banister, or a staircase to reach the various points in height, but will be very happy being able to do it thanks to these arrangements.

A free access to an edge of window, or even better, to a terrace or a balcony, is also ideal, provided that the window or the balcony is secured.

No, a cat doesn’t have a perfect sense of balance.
Yes, he risks to have a fall, even if he is skillful.
No, a cat doesn’t always come out from a fall unscathed : he is in a state of shock, he can break itself the members, but he can especially suffer from sometimes fatal internal injuries: bleeding, fracture of the palate (palatine crack), pneumothorax, bladder break, diaphragm break, heart and lungs compression, …

Thus it is strongly recommended to install or to make install a anti-falls net.

We live in paradise : we have a home designed for us, and a secured garden. If you want ideas, “Catification” from Jackson Galaxy is Claire’s favorite book : he is abundantly illustrated, and presents many easily practicable ideas for catifying your home.

You can also find other ideas here if you like Ikea.