by Alice Cat Expert | Wednesday, September 6, 2017 | Cat Tips, Catification
I have done a post about Ikea products that make great cat items a while ago. And since then I got some feedback from you guys that there are other items from Ikea that are also great for cats. So I decided to do a ‘Part 2’ of this list…(Check out ‘Part 1’ here.)
This particular coffee table is great for cats. The top can be made into a cat bed for cats and the ‘body’ of the table is a great scratching post. Here is a demonstration from one of our readers…
We have already talked about the KALLAX collection in Part 1 of this post. A reader suggested us to have a look at the EKET collection as well, here is her example of using these shelves to strategically line up on the wall for her cats to use.
I can’t believe we haven’t noticed this collection before. Some of the designs are nearly ready made for a tasteful ‘non-cat-tree’ cat tree!
I have talked about these shelves recently in another post. It’s an Ikea Hack I saw while doing one cat sitting job. With the customers’ permission, I have shared their example here.
This is a recommendation from another reader. She discovered this particular bath mat has more ‘grip’ than others. So it’s very good for when using that to line cat tree or cat shelves on high places. You know how the mat tend to move around a bit caused by the force of the cat jump? This bath mat will solve that problem.
The bonus is, it comes with different shapes and colours! And look at the price? It’s super affordable and machine washable! Perfect cat item!
I can’t believe I didn’t include this on the Part 1 of this list. I noticed lots of my customers’ house have these ones for their cats.
BYHOLMA baskets
FLÅDIS baskets
Do you use any Ikea item for your cat? If yes, please be in touch and help to add that to this list!
by Alice Cat Expert | Saturday, September 2, 2017 | Cat Tips, Catification
When people think about catification, they often think of intricate complex designs, but sometimes the most simple design is just as efficient. After all, cats tend to play with the cardboard boxes that comes with the expensive cat tree, right? hahaha
Say hi to the lucky cats who are the user of today’s catification project…
Rory…
Rory: WHAT!
And Desp…
Desp: What are you looking at?
Here you can see the ‘cat tree’ in action…
Desp: whatever… Rory: Hooman, I am watching you….
This is another shelf with the same set up in the house…
I know you might want to do the same thing, so yours truly have already helped you to organise a shopping list, click on the image will bring you to the product page at Ikea website.
1. IVAR 1 section/shelves Pine – €76
2. LUDDE Sheepskin White – €35
3. SIGNE Rug flatwoven – €2.5
If you are interested in cat related Ikea Hack, check out this link at Ikeahackers.net and my previous post on Ikea items that are suitable for cats.
Have you done any catification project? Please be in touch if you want to be featured on my blog! I am always curious to see new catification ideas!
by Alice Cat Expert | Sunday, April 2, 2017 | Cat Behaviour, Cat Tips, Catification
In the cat behaviour world, we know that cat flaps can sometimes be the source of anxiety for cats. Of course, cat flap is a very handy for cats to go in and out by themselves. However, other cats can also come in and out by themselves. These days, a lot of cat flaps work with microchip so this prevent other cats from coming in. However, I have worked with cats who have anxiety issues because they don’t know that other cats can’t come in! Plus, the cat flap can bring in smell and noise from the outside. So to some cats, cat flap is the breach of the safety to their castle and that could create lots of anxiety issues to some cats.
Today, we are going to look at an example how some human solve this problem.
There it is, a ‘Mud Room’ for the cat flap integrated into the kitchen cupboard…
This is such a good idea! This little box provides some buffer for any cats that are going in and going out of the cat flap. I can imagine they feel much safer being able to check out the environment before diving into the outside world. Also, if any cat from the outside does sneak in, this buffer zone also gives the inside cat a change to project their castle by guarding this place.
I can imagine, it will be a particularly good set up in house where they are dogs and toddlers. In case the cat is coming into the house, there won’t be a chance that the dog or the toddler accidentally blocking their entrance or poking their head out to spook the cat, etc.
As an additional advantage, this mud room does catch mud! It will be easy to clean in one confined area than to have cats drag mud all over the place, especially if you have light colour decoration around the house.
Now, let’s meet the lucky users of this amazing catification project!
Say hi to Polo…He is a little shy and I haven’t been working with him long yet so you can see he is a bit alarm by me taking photo of him.
Here is Gaby, who is also from Hong Kong just like my Larmlarm! It’s not often I get to meet a cat from my home town!
This family also has an under staircase private kitty bathroom, similar to the one what I have featured recently.
Have you done any catification project? If you have, please be in touch! I would love to feature you on here!
by Alice Cat Expert | Thursday, March 30, 2017 | Cat Tips, Catification, Review
I personally think every cat lover should have an automatic feeder.
They are handy for various reasons…
- If you are late home – If your cat needs to be fed on specific time and you know you are going to be late home that day, automatic feeder can save you the trouble to run home
- After work event – Same as above if you have commitments after work
- Saturday lay in – You can set up the feeder for Saturday morning so you don’t have to wake up early for their breakfast!
- Pace feeding – If your cat is one of those who will eat so quick and so much all in one go and then get sick. Having a feeder is a good way to slow them down. You can set it to open a couple of times a day so the cat can’t eat too much in one go.
- Natural disaster – Even if you have a pet sitter, it’s still handy to have a feeder. What if there is a natural disaster that prevent the sitter to get to your place? Remember the Big Freeze?
Some of my clients’ houses were snowed in! In case you don’t remember how serious it was, watch these two videos that I took at the time.(Apologies for the quality. It was pre-smart-phone era! I took these with a Nokia phone, remember those?)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-tZivBueX8]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7caPFa6S_A]
I hear you said…
OK! I will get one then, but which one?
I am going to list out all the feeders I have experience with (except the last one, I have yet done a job where someone use this feeder) The list sort of goes with my favourite to my least favourite. It’s not a detailed review but it’s a good comparison between all the major feeder styles in the market.
When it comes to automatic feeder, my experience tells me the simpler the better! With too many buttons and setting, it either breaks too easily or too complicated to set up and you will make mistake. When accident like that happen, your cat has no food! It’s not something I want to mess around with! I have good experience with this PetMate one and this Trixie one and they are very reasonable priced at under 20 Euro and under 30 Euro (exact price depending where you get them of course…)
I have a few customers who use this one, it’s ok as well, I just prefer the dial ones above but this one is simple enough as well if you prefer to schedule up to 4 feeds.
I find this one quite fiddly. Every time when you fill the feeder, you need to deal with 3 moving parts. It’s a bit crazy. But some might like the fact that this one can record your own voice so you can call your cat to come to eat even when you are not there! A customer of mine use this to call the cats to the kitchen at 6am so they leave her alone! hahaha! So smart!!
I find this one quite fiddly as well with the few buttons quite confusing. I guess if you use it at home and you already set it up to use permanently that’s ok. But if you want to change the time, it takes pressing quite a few buttons. It is also quite confusing for pet sitter. I recommend you to leave clear instruction for your pet sitter if you use this one.
I have experience with this one as well. Once you set it up, the food just drop down at set time. I am not sure how I feel about this one because the dry food can be in the jar for many many days. Food might not be very fresh after a while…
I have customers who use these. They call themselves an automatic feeder, but I call it ‘an open bag of food’! Some cats can get smart and start eating non stop and there is no way to stop them! Unless you have a cat who is not greedy (one of my own cats is not!), you need to know you have no control whatsoever.
Same problem except this is a bit worse because the food keeps going over to the water side! Also, most cats don’t like to drink where they eat, so I am not sure the person who design this know much about cat behaviour!
Finally, the state of the art newest automatic feeder in the market! Feeder that will only open to the cat registered with their microchip! I have no experience with this one yet. If you do, please leave a comment below! I am very curious to know how this plays out!
by Alice Cat Expert | Wednesday, March 22, 2017 | Cat Tips, Catification
Today, we got a submission from one of the followers of this blog!
Meet Kitty, the lucky cat who has her own private bathroom!
Look!
Such a smart idea!
Simply put a cat flap into a storage area under the staircase, all the suppliers are also neatly organised in the ‘bathroom’. Not only Kitty can get much needed privacy when using the litter tray, this arrangement also makes cleaning the litter tray is much easier for human with everything in place.
Do you have any smart catification ideas? Let me know! I will feature them here!
![Catification – outdoor cat stairs, Tallinn]()
by Alice Cat Expert | Friday, March 3, 2017 | Cat Tips, Catification
I saw this amazing catification project last spring when I was in Tallinn. This devoted cat lover has built a cat stair so that his/her cat can go back up to the house.
Notice there is also a cat box with a cat bed inside so in case they are not home, the cat has some shelter while waiting for the human to come home.
Such a great idea!
Since then I have discovered this cat stair is not a unique case, there are many other similar stairs around the world. Like this one by this lady Şebnem Ilhan in Turkey. Go and read the full post here.
via Woman Builds ‘Cat Ladder’ So Strays Can Come In From The Cold
And there are many more!
Like this one…
And this one…
Or this one…
If you want to see more of these cat ladders, you can check out this post on Meow Lifestyle or this post on Apartment Therapy.
Or if you type “cat ladder” on Pinterest, you will see there are lots of cat ladders out there for people who live in apartments of elevated houses.
Who knew cat ladder is a ‘thing’?
Have you seen some unusual solution for cat problems? If you have, share with us! We would love to see them!
