Pro­tec­tive grilles for tilt­ing win­dows

They are essen­tial! Have you already installed the grilles in your home? If not, please, do so as soon as pos­si­ble. Tilt­ing win­dows kill and seri­ous­ly injure many cats. Cats can eas­i­ly get stuck in a slight­ly open win­dow and are unable to move. Pro­tec­tive grilles can be ordered from Zooplus, for exam­ple. Pho­to cred­it: www.Zooplus.de.

Cat flap

Cat flaps make life eas­i­er for own­ers. What’s more, they are not meant to be left open all the time. Most cat flaps are equipped with a 4‑position lock: entry only, exit only, closed, and free access. You may pre­fer to keep your cats inside at night, when you are not at home, or just before a vet appoint­ment, for exam­ple.

Sleep­ing and rest­ing

In hot weath­er, cats pre­fer to sleep among plants and under bush­es. They also like to rest on a porch or ter­race, shel­tered from the wind and direct sun­light. In sum­mer, you can tem­porar­i­ly place an indoor cat tree out­side, under a roof canopy for exam­ple. How­ev­er, the best option is to buy a spe­cial out­door cat tree or use cat beds and bas­kets made from water­proof wood, plas­tic, and oth­er syn­thet­ic mate­ri­als: they are easy to clean and resis­tant to mois­ture and sun­light.

Play­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties

A cat-proof gar­den can ful­ly sat­is­fy your cat’s hunt­ing and explor­ing instincts. Cats there­fore gen­er­al­ly do not need addi­tion­al enter­tain­ment. You just need to make sure that your cat can play in the gar­den safe­ly and com­fort­ably. How­ev­er, if your gar­den is very small or your cat is still young and very active, you can try cre­at­ing some­thing inter­est­ing: Print­er­est.

Toi­let

Will your cat do its busi­ness in the gar­den or use a lit­ter box? It depends on each cat. Log­i­cal­ly, young and active cats tend to spend more time in the gar­den and there­fore do their busi­ness out­side more often. You can set up a cat toi­let in your gar­den. The soil should be light and well-drained to make dig­ging eas­i­er. How­ev­er, most cats do their busi­ness wher­ev­er they want. They may do so under rasp­ber­ry bush­es or even in annoy­ing mole holes, much to the delight of their own­ers.

Sand bath

Cats love rolling around in sand for plea­sure, to mas­sage them­selves, and to get rid of fleas: the sharp grains of sand dam­age the fleas’ bod­ies. All you need is a cou­ple of small bags of riv­er sand or white sand to cre­ate a “sand bath” for your cats. You can fill an emp­ty plant bed or a plas­tic con­tain­er with low sides with sand. The sand lev­el should be rel­a­tive­ly low to dis­cour­age cats from using the bath as a toi­let. And of course, cats won’t roll in wet sand, so do your best to pro­tect the sand from rain.

Obser­va­tion plat­forms

Cats love to observe and sit high up. They also like to keep their paws dry: in wet and mud­dy weath­er, they much pre­fer to walk and lie down on dry sur­faces. It is there­fore a good idea to pro­vide them with obser­va­tion plat­forms. You can do this by cre­at­ing a small rock gar­den where you can also plant aro­mat­ic and culi­nary herbs. You can also use wood: an out­door wood­en cat tree or large logs and tree trunks.

Cat grass

Your cat should always have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to nib­ble on cat grass! Unfor­tu­nate­ly, some cat own­ers think that their cats don’t need grass because they already receive spe­cial food and/or dietary sup­ple­ments to pre­vent hair­balls. How­ev­er, the instinct to nib­ble on grass will remain, and cats may try to chew on poten­tial­ly tox­ic plants. Cats can also eat lawn grass and cer­tain weeds, but it is always a good idea to pro­vide them with spe­cial cat grass in a pot on the patio.

Eat­ing and drink­ing

It is obvi­ous­ly not rec­om­mend­ed to leave cat food out­side, as it will spoil quick­ly and attract var­i­ous insects. How­ev­er, plac­ing bowls filled with drink­ing water or rain­wa­ter out­side is an excel­lent idea, espe­cial­ly dur­ing hot sum­mers. Remem­ber to clean the bowls and change the water reg­u­lar­ly. Be care­ful if you use liq­uid fer­til­iz­ers for your pot­ted plants: your cat may try to drink the water from the saucers.

Video cam­era?

If you let your cats walk in the gar­den when you are not at home or dur­ing the night, you may be inter­est­ed in installing a small video cam­era con­nect­ed to the Inter­net in your gar­den. This will allow you to see how your cats are behav­ing online and view the record­ings.