New York times Article on Catios Created High Demand For Cat Enclosure Plans
Before the NYT article hit the web I’m guessing very few could say they knew that a catio or outdoor cat enclosure was a safe protected space where their indoor cats could experience the outdoors. Now cat enclosure plans are in high demand.
I was tempted to write catio instead of cat enclosure but really how many people even know what it is?
Since the news broke cat lovers like myself have been scrambling to find their own cat enclosure plans and have been placing orders left and right for cat enclosure DIY manuals, pre-fab units and portables.
Living in a big city like NY definitely limits what you can do with your catio but luckily I have over 4 acres here in the countryside in New Hamshire and space just isn’t an issue.
I remember opening up the NYT article see here and asking myself; Are these city people crazy? After reading through the entire piece and then watching the slideshow with these amazing photos of catios I had one foot out the door on my way to Home Depot.
It’s lucky I live close to one but I would have driven as long as it took to get my hands on the materials. Before I could figure out what I needed I took a few days and poured over every cat site that mentioned outdoor cat enclosures, catios and cat cages and took more notes than I probably needed to.
I don’t know what came over me but I had to get my hands on catio building plans asap so even when my husband called out to me from upstairs at 2:30 am I still kept plugging away on my research.
Now it would have been super helpful if someone had one site with simple to follow DIY catio plans but there was only 1 or 2 sites that offered anything like that and I just didn’t think those were my best solutions. I wound up copying a look that I found on someone elses site and just added more length and choose a different type of netting for the protective walls.
I guess this probably sounds crazy but I really wanted my own unique catio. I didn’t want a cookie cutter one so I figured I had to come up with it on my own.
After a nice trip into town and lunch for my husband (never take a man shopping on a empty stomach- learned that one the hard way a few times) we ventured into Home Depot and began loading our cart with materials for our new cat run.
By the time we checked out with our 3 carts full of building materials I was raring to get back home and start putting our catio together; however my husband was not so excited about spending his Saturday working on our newest DIY project.
I had to compromise and give Hank a day to himself before our catio DIY project got underway. Little did he know that Sunday was going to be our “catio” day.
We hit the ground running early Sunday morning after a few hours of hammering had our outdoor cat enclosure structure’s framing up. I can’t say that putting it all together was quick but if you can follow directions and you aren’t accident prone I’d say go for it!
It took a few more hours to get the rest of the cat run set up properly. Our new catio was finished by the time the sun set that evening and Colby, Marco, Jax and Maggie were roaming their new outdoor cat enclosure happy as could be.
Soon to come more Cat Enclosure Plans … 
{ 0 comments }
