Anyone who reads my blogs or follows me on Facebook and Twitter knows that I'm a cat lover. I've had cats as companions since I was about eight years old which has helped me learn about their habits, preferences and needs. At the moment my husband and I are parents to three rescued cats--two are thirteen years old (Ebbie--a beautiful sable/black cat, and London--a gray tabby). The little one Zoie Joy (a black feline with half a tuxedo) is two.
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| Ebbie |
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| Zoie |
Just as we try to make the humans we live with happy, the same is true of taking care of cats and dealing with their personalities. Cat trees, cat condos and cat steps help keep ours happy, healthy and contented.
It seems to be the nature of felines to want to perch high in a room to overlook the window, yards and everything inside. A floor to ceiling cat tree can fit in a corner by a window and serve several purposes. A cat can be high off the ground and feel safe. He or she can share the space with a sibling and still have her or his own space. Most cat trees are carpeted and can be used as scratching posts.
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| Zoie |
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| Zoie |
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| London and Zoie |
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| Ebbie and Zoie |
Our oldest cat, Ebbie, hurt her back a few years ago. She wouldn't move from my bed for about ten days, except to use her litter box. I found a set of stairs she can easily climb to see out a window. I've expanded them with a bench on one side and boxes on the other to give her a little room to spread out when she's hurting. She didn't particularly like the steps in order to climb to the bed. But she did like this hassock type condo for that purpose. It gives her enough space to be able to get a good footing to hop to the bed. (We move everything around to suit their needs and ours!)
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| London and Zoie |
Ebbie, London and Zoie use all of the above. We've been collecting them for many years. Here are a few places where I found condos, steps, and cat trees.
Drs. Foster & Smith
Petco
Amazon (pet supplies)
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| Zoie |
In my Caprice De Luca home staging mystery series, Caprice is an animal lover too! She takes in strays and finds them homes. She has a long-haired calico named Sophia and has equipped Sophia with a floor to ceiling, turquoise carpeted cat tree which my cover artist put on the cover!
I've had a series of low (cheap) cat condos and finally kicked out for a tall, multi-tiered condo with a seat on the top, a cubby on the middle level, and one underneath, plus scratching posts in between. (It helped that my best friend is a dog groomer and was able to get it through one of her catalogs at wholesale--these things are expensive!)
ReplyDeleteI mostly got it with Samhain in mind, my little calico who has chronic renal failure AND gets chased by giant gray Mystic. I figured she could sit on the top bit and he would be too heavy to get up there, and she does love it. But Magic (the black cat, Mystic's sister) likes it too, and they all are using the scratching posts. (YAY). Angus, my goofy buff-yellow guy, sits up there a lot, often with his head hanging off the edge upside down.
For that alone, it was worth every penny.
And doesn't everyone arrange their entire house to suit the cats?
Of course, everyone arranges their house to suit the cats! We have a condo or scratch tree in each room to save the furniture! We've been collecting over the years so it doesn't seem an unnecessary expense to add one every now and then. Or when the carpet is completely torn away. :)
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