For all of us who enjoy that special feeling of being outside on a beautiful summer’s day, your cat feels the same way. The sights, sounds and smells of nature are intoxicating to cats and part of their instinctive needs. The prolific Dutch painter Rembrandt once declared, “Choose only one master – Nature.”
We’ve more than once touched on the topic of why indoor cats need outdoor enrichment in their lives. Dr. Lynn Bahr (aka The Cat Doc) emphatically states, “All cats need fresh air and direct sunshine.” A majority of indoor-only cats are not sufficiently enriched and if exposure to the outdoors is not practical or available she has put together an excellent article called Simple Ways to Bring the Outdoors In for Your Cat.
As the Catio Guy wrote in one of our previous articles, The Moral Case for Catios, Author Pamela Johnson-Bennett warns that under-stimulated house cats can lead to “boredom-related or stress-relieving behaviors, such as over-grooming, chewing inappropriate items, picking on companion pets, retreating into isolation, overeating, self-mutilation, compulsive behavior, and loss of appetite.”
The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) echoed those concerns in a position statement, concluding that “The innate needs of the cat are difficult to replicate in the indoor environment.” Unfortunately, “an increased incidence of behavior problems” in indoor cats has led to “an increase in relinquishment or euthanasia.”
The AAFP went on to say, “indoor/outdoor living for cats in an environment that is safe is the best option for pet cats. Safe outdoor living keeps the cat away from most dangers and yet provides a more stimulating environment with potential for more normal feline behavior.” The takeaway from the organization that sets the standards for feline care is, “Whenever possible, an outdoor enclosure is preferred.”
Cat Daddy Jackson Galaxy also believes that outdoor enclosures (aka catios or cat patios) are the best solution and said, “Catios, to me, are the great compromise. They allow cats to have access to fresh air and sunshine, to see birds and bugs, and to experience a little bit of what comes with outdoor living.”
We concur!
Four Fabulous Real Life Catios
To give you an idea of just how diverse, interesting and architecturally unique catios can be, we contacted Kris Kischer – owner of Habitat Haven (experts in outdoor pet encloures). She’s been designing and building custom catios for the past 15 years. We wanted to see a few actual examples of just how imaginative and extensive catios can be to offer their owner’s cats the outdoor stimulation they crave in a safe and enjoyable habitat.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”These 4 Incredible Custom Designed Catios are the Cat’s MEOW!” quote=”These 4 Incredible Custom Designed Catios are the Cat’s MEOW!”]
Kris shared four of her favorite catio installs with clients whose formerly indoor-only cats now have the best of both worlds. Enjoy!
1. A Catio in Santa Barbara, California
Check out the video below to see it in action…
2. A Catio in Winterville, Georgia
See the video below to watch the kitties in motion…
3. A Catio in Manassas, Virginia
4. A Catio in Ontario, Canada
Summary
We understand that catios aren’t an option for everyone, but we thought you’d enjoy seeing these truly remarkable installs. A special thank you to Kris of Habitat Haven for sharing some of her impressive work!
Do you have a favorite? Drop us a comment in the ‘Leave a Reply’ section below.
What awesome work Kris does. Really nice. Wish Kris lived closer to me and could do one for my cat.
Question I have is what happens if the cat has some issue, or decides to stay in the long runs and you can’t get it out? What do you do then? Surely you would not want to scare it or use a hose to get it moving in the direction you want.
Treats!
im interested what kind of wire is used? where can i buy this kind of fencing so i can build my own is it fencing ?
Thanks for this wonderful article and the features on catios! @mary anne smith, any home store should stock various gauges of chicken wire and other types of wire mesh. And there are a lot of plans up on the internet for catios. Just use your search engine and you will see!
WOW!! I’ve seen catios before but these, now these take the cake for outdoor catios! 👏🏼👏🏼
Great job Habitat Haven! This is great that these cat parents are able to afford and care/love their babies enough to do something so wonderful like this! 👍🏼👍🏼 To all of the very, very lucky fur babies, I hope you know that almost every other cat is very jealous of you right now. 😽 Heck, I even want to come back as one of your parents fur babies in my next life. 😉
I know these are worth the money but I wish there was something a bit more affordable for people (like myself) that would like to have something but can’t afford something to that extent, have that much area or are able to diy themselves.
Loved seeing all of these.
Habitat Haven,
Never, in my entire life, even after owning many, many cats; and still currently owning at least 15 cats, have I ever heard of or seen a catio! This is really great invention, and its a simple way for cats to go outside while still being safe. Amazing thinking and building Kris Kischer! This post was very inspiring and entertaining to read; I might have to go and build a catio myself 🙂
Amazing invention/idea!
I have a problem with many catios. No grass or trees or outdoors, except air. They can see the outdoors, but they can’t even feel grass beneath their toes. Maybe my cats are different from your cats, but keeping them in cages near nature, but never being able to touch it, seems unnatural.
Our catio, when finished, will have an overpass to an area that is grass and has access to our pond.
If I were to build one of these I’d use some of the long planter boxes and plant cat grass in them, and then make a ramp of sorts that would allow the cats to walk over this cat grass, and it’s also safer for cats to eat than our usual yard grass, which lawn grass can actually cause injury because normal lawn grass is sharp and even pointy, cat grass is smooth, doesn’t have that sharp, rigid point and helps with a cats digestive system.
Also didn’t you notice the one Catio above that is actually formed and built around a large tree?
So if you have a large tree in your yard, you could build your catio around it, then kitties could climb into the tree, sit in the tree and just enjoy themselves, but not escape out from the yard using the tree. That was ingenious right there. Don’t know how you missed that!
I also would have a pond in my yard and my Catio would also have to encompass that as well, gives the cats fresh drinking water that’s always moving, and my cats seem to really like that too.
Anyway, just a suggestion for the grass inside your catio, again, Cat Grass would be the best grass for inside their catio area, it grows fast, and cats really love it. I know my 13 cats do!
BTW: I’d also grow, and have a large area for this: Live CatNip plants! Then the cats could roll around in it, on it, nibble it and just enjoy themselves in their own little catnip heaven. LOL And believe it, CatNip gets very large, I grew one that got to be 5 foot tall and 5 foot wide, that was just ONE CatNip plant of 3 I planted, the others sort of got eaten by the neighborhood cats, the 3rd one I protected and kept it from kitties getting to it. I was surprised at how big this herb/plant can grow! WOW! But my Cats had a nice supply of CatNip for many years from that plant. LOL
My kitties would love one of these, beautiful work
Wow, so much work and thought went into all of those! Amazing. 🙂
Are these ever built with 2 way cat traffic in mind? I have a couple cats that prefer to be loners from the rest of the pack, and if they got stuck face to face with one of the other kitties in one of these type single lane traffic catios, there’d be a real problem if a kitty fight got started in there with no real way to break it up.
If I were to ever invest in something like this, I’d have to have someone else build it, I’m not able to do this, it would have to be wide enough for 3 cats to pass through, giving a wider birth between cats passing each other in the links that connect the larger patio areas where their humans can enter and sit or play with them outside.
Just wondering there were any that were ever built so that cats could pass each other safely and comfortably inside these passageway links? Just know with my cats this would be a necessity!