By Nan Hampton

When my last cat, Neko, died, I asked my daughter to help me find new cats. She found Harry Potter and his mom, Annie, at a local shelter. The shelter didn’t want to separate them and that suited me fine. Harry and Annie moved in with me about 10 years ago. I knew I wanted them to be strictly indoor cats since I had lost another cat, Scooter, to a coyote who caught him in my front yard one morning. So, I had the catio built. It is built into the house via my patio door so I can easily access it. The cats have their own cat door built in at the other end of the patio door.

The cats love to go out and watch what’s happening on the patio on the other side of the wire mesh. The catio is built of 2-inch heavy wire mesh over a cedar frame. The wire mesh is heavy enough that it would not be easy to cut through. There is a shelf about halfway up around the inside of the mesh for the kitties to sit on or lie on to take a nap in the sunshine. At each end next to the house is a small bench halfway between the shelf and the patio floor to make it easy for the cats to jump to the shelf.