I recently rearranged some baskets in the house. I had a large square basket that used to live under the utility sink full of rags. I had a stack of dog blankets and towels that the basket was more suited for, so I put the rags in an old egg basket. Izzy the cat is miffed that I messed up one of her (many) nap spots. She tried to lay in the new rag basket, but did not care for it.
She doesn’t fit, so she does’t sit. And she is now mad at me.
I have high praise for the “Cat in a Bag” cat carrier. My big boy Thor, the gray tabby, went all popcorn Yoda last year when I put him in a traditional cat carrier for his annual vet appointment. So this year I tried the “Cat in a Bag” carrier (size large). I had a little trouble zipping him in because he is a large boy, but other than making sure I wasn’t zipping body parts, getting him in and the neck fastened wasn’t difficult or traumatic. He was apprehensive about going to the car, and once in the car I used the seat belt to secure the carrier through the provided loop. He made one lunge, didn’t go anywhere, and didn’t try to lunge again. I did have to move the seat up to give him scritches, and my youngest sat in the back seat next to him to offer comfort.
The vet thought the bag was fantastic. He was able to listen to Thor’s heart and lungs through the bag, and only had to unzip it a little to do the examination and vaccinations. Thor kept his head tucked into the crook of my arm to hide from all the scary stuff, but didn’t have a full freak out. We confirmed his big boy status: 18 pounds.
Going home was also easy. I got Thor inside and took him back to his favorite closet, fully expecting him to hide from me when he was released from the bag, but he didn’t. He followed me around for a few hours, then went back to him normal routine. Two thumbs up and four paws safely tucked away in praise of this product.
We have had a small dog cot for a number of years. Our small dog does not care for the cot, and so it has been under the large dog cot. I thought maybe the cats would like it, but the catio does not have any room on the ground. So I made it into a hanging shelf.
I should have thought of this years ago.
Thor the gray tabby still hasn’t figured out how to go back outside through the new cat door.
I didn’t understand how and why the crocheted cotton coverlet on the bed was ending up wadded up in a heap. I suspected cat action, but it took a few days to catch the culprit in the act.
The cat is bored and looking for trouble. He really needs to stop being afraid of the cat flap and go out into the catio again.
We broke down and purchased a well engineered cat door for the window to the catio. It keeps out the weather and more importantly, flies.
The cats are used to going in and out at the right side of the window. The first solution was cutting a flap in the screen of the window. In winter, that was very cold. The next solution was to replace the screen with flexible vinyl, with a flap cut in. With a heavy curtain in front of the window, it was better than the screen, but the window still needed to be closed during a rain storm.
The door insert fits right into the window channels and reduces the air leak to almost nothing. We could even take away the curtain and get more light. The cats were not impressed. We tried just poking them out the window, but the magnetic click at the bottom scares Thor, the gray tabby, my 17 pound baby. We tried holding the flap open, but that lets in the flies. We decided to just let the cats figure it out.
Izzy the calico was the first to figure it out.
Thor has still not braved making the window click. He will sit on the windowsill looking mournfully out, but won’t let me near him (poking him out the window was traumatic, the door lock clattered in a scary way). It has been a week and he still won’t go out. On the plus side, we see more of him when he doesn’t spend his whole day outside eating bugs and frogs. He might loose some weight without all the extra wriggly snacks too.
Critters and Craft 