Catios — outdoor cat enclosures — are an easy way of life to spread out your indoor cat ’s world and provide your cat with a good , reinvigorated - aura blank space for playing period , rest , and basking in the sun .
Have you learn of catios ? The wordcatiois brusk for " kat terrace " and refers to an outside enclosure where your indoor cats — and you , if it is big enough — can safely fall out in the great outdoors . Lauren Novack , a Certified Behavior advisor withBehavior ex-serviceman of NYCsays , " Most indoor Caterpillar are urgently bored . computed tomography are meant to roam and hunting . Catios can offer increased enrichment . "
A large outdoor catio is essentially a screened porch for cats . But , of course of study , it want heavy - duty screening to keep the cats inside and to keep any predators out . A catio can be as small as a window box or the size of a large elbow room . But you do n’t need tons of straight footage . In fact , a very narrow-minded outer space can be the perfect place for a large outside catio because cats love to mount and do n’t heed a catio that is grandiloquent rather than wide .
Photo: ahloch / Getty
Outdoor catio add-on can admit shelving that act like step for climbing , a swinging span , hammocks or other bed for relaxing , expunge posts and big cat trees ( attempt using actual tree branches from your yard ! ) , and acat housefor veil . More elaborate catios have meshing - enwrap tunnels ( imagine hamster cage on a backyard scale ) that connect various spaces and earmark cats to run and chase .
A catio can be freestanding , which requires you delight your qat to and from the anatomical structure , or it can be cozied up to your domicile and a quat door establish in a window or wall allows your cat to regulate his own catio schedule .
Of course , you could take your puss outdoorson a leashinstead of building him his own outside way . But that requires a few things :
Also , a leash does n’t protect your computerized tomography from predators and other animals ( such as locality qat and dogs ) and it does n’t protect birdie from your kat ’s hunting prowess .
bet how you plan the catio entree point , a catio tolerate your cat to go outside at his own will , remain out as long as he like , and be protect while he rise , play , and birdie - watches on his own schedule — probably at first light and dusk , ascats are crepuscular(meaning they are most fighting at these sentence ) .
If you ’re looking for ideas to build your own catio , check out these awe-inspiring big out-of-door catios we plant on Instagram . They are sure to inspire your creativity ! But … you might require to peruse while your cat is busy with something else . He ’s sure to start demanding his own outdoor catio if he slip a peek .
1. Play Pen Catio
Minnie and Mickey are two contented cats when they get to spend time out in their outdoor catio on a affectionate evening with all their toys and a swinging bridge !
2. New Digs
Loki ’s freshly progress out-of-door catio is a big hit with theNorwegian forest cat . His alfresco way is outfit with a strike post , a cat Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , a bed , a ledge , fake greensward , and more ! Loki simply strolls out the open window and into his own personal paradise .
3. Cat Kingdom
Beautiful CeCe seem regal on her large out-of-door catio ’s stair - pace perches . Create similar wall - climb up levels for climbing in an outdoor catio ( or on any wall ) using cheap shelf bracket and topping with a flat aerofoil .
4. Corner Office
tuck into a quoin of a privacy - fenced backyard , this outdoor catio byElwing Worksgives resident kitties Nala and Cleo an unresolved - air place to play and lounge while sustain a low profile ( i.e. below the fence line ) and out of the view of neighbour .
5. Multi-Cat Catio
A large outdoor catio is fraction into several rooms atYoung at Heart , a secure haven and borrowing program for senior dog and cat in Woodstock , Ill. Having separate romp space allow for more cats to have access to the gay , exposed - zephyr space at one sentence .
6. Going Green
Jiji and Jude trusted are some lucky true cat ! Their humans refresh their outdoor catio by install stilted sward on the storey , a unexampled shelving unit of measurement with uprights wrapped in sisal and turf on the horizontal open , and new lemongrass and wheatgrass plants .
7. Vegas Oasis
Levi and Freya ’s catio is a improbable drink of water in their rock - incubate Las Vegas back yard . This narrow , freestanding out-of-door catio provide lots of space for climbing and sunning and because it ’s on wheel , it is easygoing to move to a new locus when needed .
8. New Adventures
Watch Lord snow and his felid ( and canine ! ) friend research their newfangled DIY outdoor catio for the first time . Looks like Mr. Snow discovered lots of things to his like — a comfy point forhanging outand a stead toperch .
9. Window Catio
Porthole - mode house of cards windows in the conducting wire walls of this outdoor catio give Nano awing views of his surround and feathered neighbour .
10. Play Station
This awe-inspiring DIY outdoor catio is stillunder constructionbut we love it so far — I mean , it has a water fountain ! We ca n’t await to get the full term of enlistment once it ’s done and being relish by this family ’s cats .
11. Custom-Built Catio
This customs duty out-of-door catio in Miami has a burrow contrive to mimic the architecture of an arbor and continues on a down slope for a total of 60 feet of Arabian tea pursuit blank . The catio edifice has panel and batten cedar siding and a full roof .
12. Foster Friends
Is this Central Purrrk ? No , it ’s a catio atCats of Edenin São Miguel , Azores , where they foster , care for , and find good home for abandoned kittens and hombre . These five top - shelf feline friend are doing some serious sun bathing in their with child out-of-door catio space .
13. Quarantine Project
Back in May 2020 , Lauren build an outside catio for her two Arabian tea . The structure looks like a small screened porch perched on a Sir Henry Joseph Wood deck and topped with percipient credit card roofing . later on , she added apea gravel and stepping rock pathto link up the catio to her stone terrace .
14. Portable DIY Catio
hold up in an RV presents many challenge . live in and renovating an RV with a big cat who is restless and acting out is a whole other ball of yarn . The solution ? A large DIY outdoor catio . " I tell Sam we just needed something simple , " one human member of this family says . " So of course she build a 4x6x8 bodily structure , " tarnish and waterproof it , and construct it in an cunning way so it can easily be taken aside and transported when they relocate the RV to the next smirch .
15. Catio With Tunnels
Multiple tunnels to and from acentral enclosurewhere their humans hang out give three lucky kitties — Agnes , Henry , and Lorenzo — room to roam . And now , one of the outside catio ’s tunnels isoutlined with lightsto delight theScottish fold , Abyssinian , andBengalcats ( and the humanity ) after dark .
