The Catio, a Feline Delight

The catio is gaining popularity as a way to let cats enjoy the outdoors safely.

For cat lovers, our lifelong mission is to find creative methods to spoil our beloved kitties, and the catio is no different.

Cat aficionados find our own compelling ways to provide interesting and stimulating environments for our cats, since kitties can easily become bored, lethargic couch potatoes. With an ample supply of cat trees, scratching posts, interactive toys and cardboard boxes placed strategically around the house, most cats will thrive beautifully.

But then there is that controversial question about whether it is essential for cats to have access to the great outdoors to further enhance their lives. Some feline experts claim that indoor cats live significantly longer, healthier lives. They also offer some rather amazing suggestions to keep indoor cats amused and stimulated.

Nonetheless, you see your cat sitting at the windowsill, looking longingly at the outside world and you can't help but feel a tinge of guilt feeling that kitty is being deprived. If that is the case, cat lovers, the other day in an article in The New York Times online, I ran across the "Catio" which offers an excellent compromise.

Catios are gaining popularity in cities and suburban areas. One Park Slope couple, Mary Sillman and Martin Stein, fashioned a Catio for Buster, their 9 year-old gray cat on half of their small deck.

An architect, Mr. Stein built their Catio, which Buster can reach through a window. Ms. Sillman said, "He just loves looking into the gardens below and people's backyards."

Fifty-year-old Rose-Marie Whitelaw, another Park Slope dweller who claims to be handy with copper piping and a blowtorch, transformed her 10-by-20 foot deck into kitty Nirvana fashioning a Catio out of deer fencing, chicken wire and pipes. According to the article she, "erected a seven-foot railing that the cats cannot climb, and then spray-painted it black so it would be less obtrusive."

Fortunately there are now commercial Catios on the market so folks who don't feel adept at carpentry may add to the enrichment of their kitty's lives. A nine-year old business in Port Washington, N.Y., Kittywalk Systems, run by Jeff and Lise King, sell modular cat enclosures resembling the Habitrail system for hamsters.

They can be made into cat-size kingdoms or used individually.

Pictured above is the Fun Run Outdoor Cat Enclosure available as low as $39.99.

Isn't spoiling kitties fun? Do you have a catio?

For more cat-enriching activities:

• Craft Your Own Cat Toy
• Understand Cat "Love Bites"
• Cool Cat Gifts: Slideshow