Cat Climbing Shelving
Project Date: February 2021
I never thought that I would become a cat owner. I had always been a bit afraid of cats in the sense that they would scratch me. I’ve had experiences of cats climbing onto my lap and putting their claws into my leg! Throughout 2020 we had been talking as a family about having a pet, and in particular, a puppy. I like dogs (I had one when I was a kid) but I didn’t want the responsibility of owning and training a dog. So I kept saying no to a dog. I don’t remember how, but one day, my daughter changed her mind and decided she wanted a kitten. At first I was against the idea, but eventually I came around to the idea, and we started actively looking for a kitten. What finally convinced me, was the thought that having a cat around would mean no rats and mice. Earlier during the year, we had to get Rentokill in to catch rats in the roof space. At the time of writing this post, our cat has caught and killed one rat, so he has earned his keep!
I told a friend from work that I was looking for a kitten, then sometime in late October 2020, she told me her sister had come across 3 abondoned newborn kittens in a field on her farm. My daughter picked out one she liked, and they helped to raise the kittens to a bit bigger, before bringing “Beany” to us (my daughter came up with the name). He was still very small and incredibly cute when he came to us in December 2020.
Despite not being a cat person in the past, I had always thought that if I ever did end up with a cat, I would want to build some climbing shelves for the cat. So, as Beany started to get bigger and learn to jump and climb, I started to plan then build the shelves. I looked up many design options, and settled on a simple design of a ramp then offset shelves, with the highest shelf to have a hole cut out for Beanmy to climp up through.
Beany watched me build the shelves and was very curious as it was going up. Once it was up, he was a bit hesitant to start with, but after some encouragement, he was away racing up and down. Recently I put a mat up on the top shelf, and from time to time, he will climb all the way up to sleep, possibly to get away from the constant attention of my daughter!
Beany has recently been bypassing the ramp, and instead jumps directly onto the lowest shelf, so I have removed the ramp.
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