Kits and Mortar

The idea of designing for cats is to get inside the feline psyche and figure out what changes you can make to your house to keep kitty happy. Now, I’m not a professional cat psychologist, (although if you are, email me!), but I think most cat owners would agree that cats really like being up. Up trees, up on your shoulders, up on top of wardrobes, or up on shelves.

Thanks jiva.

A simple way to provide your cats with added entertainment and height is to put up cat shelves.

Maxwell, over at Apartment Therapy, put up a series of cat shelves in his apartment for his two cats, Dodger and Oliver. He says:

When I adopted brothers Dodger and Oliver as kittens last year, I researched climbing products and was appalled at the utter absence of design sensibility in an entire product category.

Even the DIY projects I came across were consistently awful. [...] These are a combination of 12 and 36 units [...] carpeted with Flor tiles using industrial glue. The smaller shelves needed stronger attachment hardware to handle the weight.

Well worth going over to check out the photos (they’re copyright so I shan’t reproduce them here). Maxwell glued floor tiles to his shelves for added grip, but I don’t now if that’s necessary so long as the shelves aren’t too slippery and your cat has a relatively easy way route upwards.

Another favourite resting place for cats is somewhere warm and cosy - like the top of a monitor:

Thanks pquinn.

I have tried those radiator hammocks - metal frames that hook over a radiator and sport a furry cover for your cat to snuggle in - but I’ve never had any luck with them. My cats just haven’t shown any interest in them, maybe because they’re not very stable and so make them feel insecure. A well constructed monitor shelf, on the other hand, is stable, warm, and near kitty’s human.

Unfortunately, flat screen monitors rather rule out monitor shelves for the modern geek moggy, so I guess my futurecats will have to have theirs nailed to the wall instead.

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One of the hardest things to do for an indoors cat is provide them with enough exercise to keep them fit and healthy. Cats that don’t move about enough are prone to putting on weight and risk getting diabetes - all of which makes for both sad kittie and sad owners.

Indeed, I saw this problem with my own cat, Fflwff, when she went to live with my parents down in Dorset. Introducing an adult cat into a household of three other adult cats (all female) is pretty tricky, and Fflwff spent about three months living on top of the wardrobe. She slept up there, ate up there, and only came down in the middle of the night to use the litter tray.

Fflwff’s a big cat, easily twice the size of some of the other cats we’ve had, and as such it’s important that her weight is kept in check. Unfortunately, even after my parents other cats died - thus giving her full ownership of the house - she did put on some pounds, getting up to 8.6kg (19lbs) at her podgiest. The vet recommended we get at least a kilogram off her, but that’s not easy for a cat that likes to sit about and sleep a lot!

The cure for Fflwff turned out to be the acquisition of two feisty kittens who now chase her round the house and steal her food, but that’s not an option for everyone. Providing you’ve got the room, though, a cat wheel can be a really good way to get your moggies moving.

The videos on YouTube of cats running on cat wheels seem mainly to be of Bengals, but don’t let that put you off - the idea is sound for any breed of cat or colour of moggie.

You can buy cat wheels from companies such as The Cat Wheel Company or PetZones, although they’re far from cheap. Given the concept of a wheel isn’t hard to grasp, it might be cheaper to find a local craftsman to make one for you. So long as the wheel is well supported and not too heavy, it should be pretty easy to make.

What may not be so easy is getting your cat to use it! The Cat Wheel Company has a few suggestions on training:

The main thing, I suspect, is to use positive re-inforcement. Use a toy initially to get them to understand that when they run the wheel moves, give food rewards every time they run to start with, then once the behaviour is established give random rewards to maintain it. A lot of cats seem to really love running on their wheels, so depending on the attitude of yours, it may not be that hard to get them to exercise.

It may seem strange to see a cat running on a wheel, but they clearly enjoy it and I’m definitely going to think about where I could put a cat wheel in when I come to designing my house. After all, well-exercised cats are not just healthier, they’re also less likely to exhibit bad behaviour, such as scratching or shredding, as a result of boredom.

Besides that, cat + wheel = hours of entertainment, so its a win-win situation for both hoomans and kittehs!

Filed under : cats, design for cats, things we'd like in our house

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I’ve been telling a lot of people about this blog lately, and explaining the two main threads - green development and cat-friendly design. The concept of an ecohouse is very well understood, but I’ve been seeing a lot of blank faces when I talk about designing for cats.

We don’t generally think about the environment that we provide to our cats - we just assume that they’ll be happy in our houses as they are. Cats are pretty flexible creatures and they’ll make the best of where they find themselves, but in the UK we generally let our cats outside, where they get the majority of their exercise and stimulation.

But what if you couldn’t let your cat out? What if there were some serious threats to her safety that made it unwise to let her wander? Kevin’s brother lives near Dallas, TX, and has lost a number of cats that he suspects have been taken by coyotes. Even in the UK, there can be danger. When I was a kid living in Dorset, we lost cats to speeding drivers hurtling down a nearby road. Maybe, sometimes, it’s best to keep kitty in?

If that’s the case, if your cat isn’t allowed out, how do you ensure that she gets enough exercise? Enough stimulation? It’s good, of course, to have more than one cat so that they can socialise and play with each other. My cat, Fflwff, who lives permanently with my parents now, has benefited immensely from having two kittens to chase her round and steal her food: she was getting overweight and doing very little except sleeping, but now she’s regained a spring in her step and has lost several pounds.

But having multiple cats isn’t the whole answer. They also need a stimulating environment that caters to their needs. There’s inspiration out there already, and I’ll be looking at all the cat design I can find, but I’ll also be trying to understand what makes cats tick, and how I can best provide for their natural behaviours.

Nekobukuro, the Tokyo Cat House, by _Dorothy_

We don’t own a cat right now, because our flat is too small, but when we build our own house, it will be with cats in mind.

Filed under : design for cats

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