I just got a note from Shelby at Hoofs ‘n’ Horns, a large animal rescue in the Picture Rocks area of Tucson. They have an opportunity to buy hay at $3 off per bale, from a horse rescue which has just shipped in a truckload (and I mean a truckload) from California. If you would like to make a donation to Hoofs n Horns so they can take advantage of this offer, or would just like to buy some good hay for your own critters, go to the Hoofs n Horns website, or email shelby.hoofsnhorns@yahoo.com
Building Cat Furniture — Cat Appeal Part 2
December 15, 2011 | Author: admin
Cats like height.
Cats like to claw.
Cats like a good stretch.
Cats like hiding, surprising and exploring.
Cats like sleeping, especially in the sun and by windows, and curling up when they do so.
In designing furniture with high cat appeal, I want each piece to include at least three of the things cat really like. Here’s how:
Pieces can get height in three ways: the entire piece can be tall; the main body of the piece can be of medium height, but have danglies or scratching posts projecting upward off the main body, or be made to be attached to a wall, corner, window sill, or suspended from the ceiling.
Having a clawable surface is easy; just include a sisal or wood post in each piece. If a piece has multiple legs, then have multiple types of surfaces.
Stretching can be encouraged by having a post that’s at least the length of the cat, or a shorter post on a second level, or danglies that hang above the cat’s reach, so they’ll jump.
My younger cats enjoy playing smack paw with one another, with one hiding inside a cubby and one outside, or between cubbies on two levels. They also like playing smack paw underneath doors, and do the same with cutouts on the bottom of cubbies. My testers give smaller holes with danglies inside a four purr rating. I use gold colored brads for attractive but solid points of attachment, and make danglies with snap-on ends so it’s easy to change them out to maintain interest. The desire to explore can also be satisfied by using tunnels and washable curtains over entrances.
My older cats are big fans of furniture that’s window height both for sleeping and watching. I’ve purchased commercial cat window ledges for both myself and friends, and have been disappointed in the performance of the brace. I haven’t yet found a brace I like for my own models, so for the moment I achieve window exposure by height. The window/sleeping surface is made curled, and the right size for a rounded bed.
Hermitage Replaces HSSA as Vet
December 13, 2011 | Author: admin
The Hermitage has replaced the Humane Society as its provider of vet care for the shelter cats, who will now be going to Valley Animal Hospital. I think this is more significant than anything else that has happened in the past 4 years, including the departure of Mary Jo Spring. The Hermitage was founded as a no-kill shelter to provide lifelong homes for animals rejected by others. While Sister was not adverse to adoption, it as not her primary goal. The very word hermitage means a place to live, a retreat. This difference in attitude and philosophy is what made the Hermitage unique and special. I think that’s why it had such a large and diverse group of volunteers, many of whom would never have been comfortable elsewhere.
The original Hermitage philosophy is not the same as the veterinary care philosophy of the HSSA. Partnering between a no-kill shelter with a kill shelter for vet care is inappropriate, especially when the person at the no-kill shelter is an ED with no animal care experience or is a vet tech who by training is taught to be subservient to a vet. They are going to do whatever the vet recommends. And the HSSA does not adopt out ferals that are brought it, they put them down. It puts down animals with chronic but treatable diseases. Their focus is not on how to best provide long term care for chronic diseases like diabetics, renal failure, FIV and feline leukemia, or even the common day-to-day minor illnesses seen in a typical private vet practice. The HSSA primary veterinary focus is to provide spay/neuter and vaccination services to get already healthy animals adopted out as quickly as possible. However much I may dislike the Humane Society, they are up front about their policies and philosophy, and when they put down dozens and dozens of Hermitage cats, they did so at the direction of the Hermitage. And the Hermitage is where the ultimate responsibility lays.
So I was very relieved to learn that the Hermitage has changed vets. I don’t know if they board voted to do it for philosophical reasons, or practical ones. Valley is located much closer to the Hermitage, and when you are making twice daily trips, that’s significant. Valley also has 24 hour emergency service and the HSSA does not. When you have a few hundred animals, the chances of needing care outside of 8 AM – 5 PM or on a Sunday are pretty high. I understand that Valley will even be making site visits, which is great. So I see this as a big win for the cats, and a positive step for the Hermitage.
Building Cat Furniture — Holding It All Together
December 12, 2011 | Author: admin
Most of the instructions for home construction of cat furniture, and even a few of the commercial ones, use glue to attach carpet to the wood. I don’t know whether it’s cost (glue and staples are both cheap, but to use staples that are really going to work you need a staple gun, which everyone may not have. On my first pieces I used an upholstery staple gun (I now use a pneumatic, but that’s due to the volume that I do– for a single item, an upholstery stapler is just fine). Properly applied staples will NOT come out from cat clawing, when I need to remove one, I have to use pliers. Think about it — your furniture is made using staples too, and when cats claw the arm on your sofa, you don’t see staples coming off, you see cloth and stuffing coming off. Lastly, glue will eventually dry up and lose adhesion, no such problem with staples. There’s a reason why your living room carpet is attached using staples and not superglue. Brads work just fine too.
Most of the commercial scratchers and condos I’ve seen and used over the years only have the sisal attached to the post every 4-6 inches. They rely on the tightness of the coiling to keep the sisal in place, and fewer staples looks nicer. While this may save 25 cents on materials, it means the sisal is going to come off faster, and when it does, it will come in large chunks. I decided to opt for a staple every three turns, and since I use 3/4 inch width of sisal, that means every 2 and 1/4 inches there’s a staple. I put them on opposite sides each time to preserve a nice look, and if it’s around a board, avoid putting them on the narrow end.
To hold the wood pieces together screws are far better than nails. I did not think on something this small it would make a significant difference. I was wrong. You want to make sure you use flat headed screws on the bottom of any furniture so they don’t scratch the floor. Counter sunk screws aren’t really necessary on the bottom if you’ll be using carpeting, as the curled over edges of the carpet will hold the bottom off the floor.
Building Cat Furniture — Cat Appeal Part 1
December 10, 2011 | Author: admin
Today I just want to talk about the appeal of the major materials used in cat furniture. I’ll talk about danglies and overall design in other posts.
Cat furniture typically has three types of exposed material for cats to claw — hardwood, carpet and sisal. The material needs to have real substance so the cat can dig in again and again, so coverings like artificial turf and canvas won’t work. The material needs to release the cat’s claws cleanly and quickly, so nails don’t get snapped and cats don’t get caught (how many times have you seen a cat get its claw stuck by one toe in a screen?). That means looped carpet is out.
The material also needs to “speak” to the cat, and for some reason, sisal does that. Sisal has a nice rustic look to it, but it’s a bit prickly, which is why I don’t understand its status as universal status as a cat magnet. I guess their paw pads are tough enough that it doesn’t feel prickly to them. I recently purchased mats of woven sisal, which is not prickly, and I’ll have to see what the testers have to say about that (my hunch is that while VERY attractive, it won’t last nearly as long as the rope sisal).
In terms of type of wood to use, I don’t think the species of hardwood matters, but you do want to get wood that has NOT been treated. If you go to Home Depot or a similar store and look at the wood, you will see that the treated wood is darker, and has 1 inch slits on it running longways. The treatment is to protect the wood from rotting, but if that’s going on inside your house, you have a lot more serious problems than making a kitty condo. You should not use treated wood where it will come in contact with things that go in mouths, which is why you don’t use treated wood to make planters or garden beds, or in making toys for toddlers or parrots. And you will not of course use varnish or paint for the same reason.
Newspaper is prime. I doubt Egyptian cats were very interested in sitting on their people’s clay and wax tablets the way modern cats enjoy the Sunday paper. Cheap, nice rustling sound, and plentiful. But sometimes I’d like to actually read, and it can be annoying picking up all the shreds every morning. So one of the accessories I’ll be offering will be cat pillows: washable pillowcases out of cute cat-themed cloth, smaller than regular pillow cases, just the right size to slip in a newspaper, secure the flap, and let Puff Boy have at it. I don’t recommend washing the pillowcases with the newspaper in them though, unless you want paper mache (although maybe selling them as an art supply would be good cross marketing).
I’ve tried out some other materials for cat appeal. There’s a new green material used for pavestones made of recycled tires, durable, easy to clean, tough, but giving enough their claws could gt a good hold. I thought they’d really go for it, and I could wrap it around the outside of square surfaces (it’s not very flexible). The testers did like it, but they liked to lay on it, not claw it.
Building Cat Furniture — Stability
December 8, 2011 | Author: admin
From a cat’s point of view, there are only two issues of interest when it comes to furniture: is it physically stable enough so I can get a good stretch when I grip it, and is it fun to claw. I’ve seen and built some furniture that was very attractive from a human standpoint (nice colors, quality material and construction) but that left the cats cold. What these items had in common was that they did not stay still when the cat was using them. I’ve made several really nice cat scratcher door hangers with only sisal, only carpet, and a combination, and my “testers” panned them all while they were hung from the door, even after I rubbed cat nip and cat mint on them, attached danglies and tried a variety of fastenings. When I put them on the floor against the door or on a carpet though, instant success. So it seems that door hangers don’t stay quite still enough. I’ve also seen cats initially interested in short scratching posts (by short I mean 18 inches or less) get turned off when the post falls over. And once they fall over, no self-respecting cat is going to be interested any more.
The base needs to be fairly substantial in order to prevent tipping if you have a bigger cat. The recommendations I’ve read are for scratchers to generally around 32 inches for an adult, with a .6 multiplication factor base to be stable (a 32 inch tall scratcher would need a 19.2 inch base to avoid tipping). I don’t know how the numbers were arrived at, but it seems to be widespread. (Hope this isn’t a version of the old “we cut the holiday roast in two because grandma did it that way” gem).
For these reasons I’ve decided not to offer door hanger scratchers, and all the free-standing scratchers will have a minimum wood base of 20 inches. I may make some scratchers to attach to corners, but need to find some cat friends who own their own places willing to let me drill some holes in their walls to test some models first.
Building Cat Furniture — OSB Versus Plywood
December 1, 2011 | Author: admin
The issues involved in choosing what type of wood to use for bases in cat furniture is very different than when choosing wood for use in home construction. The primary concern for a cat condo is preventing tipping, which means low center of gravity and a heavy base. A condo I make may be used simultaneously by several rambunctious youngsters leaping on and off, and the condo needs to stay in place. OSB weighs about 15% more than plywood. The shear strength of OSB is about twice that of plywood, which is nice when a material will be subjected to cats jumping off and on the edges of it.
Plywood is known for its durability, but plywood and OSB are in the same manufacturing category as far as standards. The condos I have seen people throw away are NOT because the wood has been shredded by cat claws or come loose, but due to wrecked carpeting or missing sisal. So I think both types of wood are fine for condos in terms of durability.
One big difference between OSB and plywood in home building is that plywood has a better response to repeated exposure to water. But a cat condo is not a subroof or basement flooring, and I don’t see that as an issue for this product. You don’t see cat owners putting water bowls on top of condos, and I’ve never had a cat pee repeatedly on a condo (your mileage may of course vary). I have certianly seen cats deposit poop and hairballs in a condo, but because of the carpet, that is more of a cleaning issue. I deconstructed a number of condos in looking at how to build them, and there just wasn’t any edge swell. So water is a non-issue for condos.
Both plywood and OSB are manufactured materials, but some suppliers tout OSB as a more ecofriendly material because it is made from smaller pieces of wood. I’m not sure the difference is significant.
Lastly, there is the issue of cost. OSB wins hands-down there.
Building Cat Furniture — Choosing Carpet
November 5, 2011 | Author: admin
Cats are going to like pretty much any type of carpet you choose for a condo, with one caveat–do not get carpet with short, tight loops. I started to get some at Bobbie Joe’s, it was an attractive pattern and I though the shortness of the carpet would make it easy to clean. But the kind lady there knew what I was going to use it for, and advised against it–she said she had had previous customers use that type of carpet on cat condos, and the cat’s nails get caught in it and break off. I had never heard that before, thanked her for the information, and now choose only non-looped carpet.
Don’t bother with the artificial grass type of carpeting, the cats will shred it quickly, and it doesn’t look anywhere near as nice as shag carpet.
The other factors to consider are whether the pattern is pleasing, and how easy the carpet will be to clean. Generally, the shorter the carpet fibers, the easier it is to vacuum, and if you have a multi-cat household with long haired cats, that may be the way to go. In constructing condos, though, I have found that the longer the fibers, the better the condos looks on the corners and staples are better hidden. So it’s generally six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.
Building Cat Furniture — Sisal Rope
November 3, 2011 | Author: admin
I’ve started building various kinds of cat furniture and scratchers, and I’ve learned a few things about materials I thought I’d share with others. Today I’ll discuss my search for sisal.
Firstly, there is no such thing as sisal that does not have some oil on it, unless you have personally found a tropical villager to make it for you by hand. In order for the rope to go through the machines which coil it, there has to be some oil to provide lubrication. I have read that in former times, the rope would be heavily oiled so that it would weigh more, as rope was sold by the pound. But now it is sold by length, so there is no incentive to use more oil than strictly necessary.
That being said, the amount of oil still varies greatly. When I was doing my first demo scratcher, I just purchased a 50′ package from Home Depot. (Only one brand was available). It was light in color, no mention of oil on the package, and it looked good like the sisal I saw on high end manufactured condos. But when I got it home and opened the package, I was overwhelmed by the odor of petroleum, and that was from a short length. Sisal is a rope that is degraded by water, which is why it is not used in naval environments even though it handles nicely, so washing it is not a solution.
I then tried looking on eBay, called every home and garden store in town, and looked online. I found some places listed their sisal as unoiled, and after asking questions and knowing what I now do, I find that to be disingenuous. What they mean by unoiled, it turns out, is that no EXTRA oil is added, just enough to get through the machine. No one could sell sisal in small amounts at anything remotely approaching a price that would be commercially viable, and shipping costs were sometimes more than the cost of the sisal itself (rope is very heavy). I ended up locating bulk spools (600 feet) of 3/8 inch thick Brazilian sisal made specifically for the pet product trade, and the manufacturer pointed me to a local distributor in the the construction trade who agreed not to charge a shipping fee if I was willing to wait until they had enough other items to meet the flat shipping rate. I held my breath on this, afraid I would get just more of the same product I had already been disappointed in, but no, the bulk coil has hardly any odor even though it is a much greater amount, and it looks and handles nicely. After sitting in the open air for 24 hours, the odor was completely gone. O Happy Day. Since cats do not chew on the sisal, but scratch it, I am comfortable with this. I don’t know what people with big birds like parrots do, since they handle the rope with their mouths as they climb up and down it. So lesson one is that there really is a difference in who you buy from.
While I was waiting for the sisal rope to arrive, I did some more digging, and found a place that sold sisal rug remnants. I’ve been seeing upscale scratching posts made of these, but don’t know anyone who has one, so I’m not sure if the cats like it as much as the rope. It does have a very nice look to it, and comes in a variety of light and dark shades. I haven’t seen it integrated into any larger pieces of cat furniture. I’ll be making some scratchers with it this weekend, and let you know what my crew of experienced testers thinks of it.
What to do when your cat won’t use the litterbox
October 2, 2011 | Author: admin
Cats can refuse to use a litterbox for a variety of reasons. When a cat that normally uses the litterbox suddenly starts peeing elsewhere, it is time for a quick trip to the vet to see if there is a urinary tract infection. Cats which have been declawed can suddenly stop using the litter box; if the sand gets into the wounds on their feet it can hurt a great deal and they quickly associate the litterbox with pain. I had a client once who had a “fussy” cat she kept separate in a small area because it would not use the litterbox. When I saw the litterbox, I instantly knew why–it was full of poop, and the cat wanted a clean box (and who doesn’t want a clean restroom?) A good rule of thumb on how many litterboxes you need is to take the number of cats you have, and add one. Cats are fastidious creatures, and can be territorial about their boxes.
But what if you have gotten a cat, it’s been checked by a vet, its litterbox is kept clean, and it still will not use the box? I have seen a variety of attractants on the market, and never seen one work. What I do have, however, is a simple solution that I have never seen anywhere in print. Cats that don’t use the litterbox invariably use some soft cloth as their bathroom, like a bathroom mat, or blanket or dog bed. So, forget using litter, just focus the behavior the cat already has onto a more acceptable item.
Confine your kitty to the bathroom and get a fresh, never-used litterbox. But instead of putting litter in it, put in a nice big, soft old towel. Every time you use the restroom yourself, check to see if the towel has been used–if it has, then replace with another old towel. After two days of this, put the litterbox in a NEW place, not where the old one was. Take your cat, and show it where the new litterbox is, and let it have its freedom about the house again. Keep the towels in its box fresh, and you won’t have any more problems with peeing in inappropriate places.
By the way, I find adding a half-cup of vinegar to my laundry when washing eliminates any residual pee smell. Plus, vinegar acts as a natural disinfectant. The sharp vinegar smell will be gone by the time the laundry is finished, so your laundry closet won’t smell like salad dressing.