[Guest_LeChatNinjah_*]

Hey, Catxperts, am planning on enclosing a bit of my back "yard" for mah kittehs, who are inside cats but do love the great outdoors.

My back "yard" is basically all paved except for a handkerchief square of grass which would be really hard to extend a cat run onto because of changing levels etc.

Would a cat run that is only on paving still be enjoyable to them? I was reading a site today that showed ways to attach climbing stuff onto the house walls etc. so they can play, but there really wouldn't be much for them to see - it's basically just netting in the fence to roofline on one side of the house, with exit and entry via my bathroom window.

I could put some potted kitteh plants in there for them to discover. Would that be enough?

[FiveAus]

In our last house, we had two cat runs that were accessible from a tunnel from the laundry window and joined by a tunnel going between them. Neither were on grass, one was on concrete and the other we laid pavers over sand.
The cats LOVED them, and I'd often catch them having a good old roll on the pavers, wriggling with joy at the feel of that lovely scratchy texture.

And in fact, we deliberately didn't extend them to grass because of the difficulty in maintaining a lawn inside a cat run. We put pots of cat nip and parsley in there that we could water through the mesh.

[Guest_LeChatNinjah_*]

I was thinking of putting a few pots in there, have heard from other catxperts that they may squash, crap on, devour, otherwise-kill said pot plants, but worth a go.

[FiveAus]

I put them there mainly for me, I wanted it to look nice, They lasted a while but I think they died of neglect rather than cats squashing them.

Our cats had lots of hanging ropes and toys to climb and play with and things to sit on and in, but the things they loved the best were long shelves we attached to the brick wall of the house, which formed the back wall of one of the enclosures. They would lay on them, stretched out in the sun and snooze the day away. They were up reasonably high, and staggered like this......

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There was a tree stump on the ground that they used to launch themselves from, to get to the lower shelf, then they'd just climb up to the one they wanted. They could see most of the backyard from there and if I set up a cat run again (this current house isn't suitable, unfortunately), I'd forget the toys and ropes and just have plenty of shelves.

[Guest_LeChatNinjah_*]

I already have the plans for the shelves attached to the side of the house - I'm so happy to hear that your kittehs love them! I'm also going to be on the hunt for a giant bit of driftwood for them to climb.

[*Spikey*]

Security is always paramount, as is hygiene, so no grass is not really a problem. If you grow them some fun greenery, they will nibble and play with it as needed. If there is stuff for climbing and scratching, plus hidey holes for surprises, then you will have made cat heaven. It could easily be done from recycled stuff.

(Need pictures of kittehs being Ninjas in the new run!!!!)

[malibu71]

My husband built us two using catnet which is available online would suggest however a door as entry rather than the zip closure they offer as the zip gets older it gets tougher!!!!

THey do love being up high even if from our point of view nothing to see - we have beds and the dog houses that can break in two put in there with beds underneath, they are raised on boards to keep out of water if it rains and give them somewhere to hide in bad weather, looking forward to buying our own place so we can do more!!!

[FiveAus]

Funny story about a cat in a cat enclosure and how he managed to disrupt the entire neighbourhood early each morning.
We have Bruno, a brown Burmese cat, he is the naughtiest cat ever born. At the time of the story we were living in town with neighbours either side and over the back, all in close proximity, and had two Australian Shepherd dogs, who were usually fairly quiet.
We'd let he dogs outside early, around 5.30am as this was the time we got up for work, and one morning they started barking. Unlike them but we yelled at them to shoosh, and they did. Next morning they barked again, excited LOUD barking. This went on day after day and we covered fences and gates so they couldn't see out the front in case they were barking at the morning walkers.
They were driving us nuts! Then we noticed Bruno heading out the laundry window into his enclosure at a rapid pace........imagine this little brown devil screaming into the laundry, flying up onto the bench and launching himself into the tunnel.
So we watched what he was doing. He'd run down the tunnel, leap onto the shelves thenlaunch himself at the wire mesh and hang there, making faces at the dogs, then he'd run up the mesh, fling himself back onto the shelves and do it again!
That's what the dogs were barking at! Bruno had figured out his fantastic game of making the dogs bark and he was playing it for all it was worth.
Solution: we shut the laundry window so he couldn't get out into the enclosure until it was broad daylight. Peaceful early mornings once again!