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"One cat just leads to another" - Ernest Hemingway
You have how many cats?
You have how many cats?
We are Neville and Kari.
At our house we have 10 amazing cats, and while that may seem like a lot, they are so distinct in personality and general behaviour, it rarely seems like very many at all. Except at mealtimes and when they all decide that our furniture is their furniture.
It didn't start with 10 however, I had zero cats in my life until I started dating Kari, who at the time had 10. As she went through a dissolution of her marriage, this population was unfortunately divided by preference (who wanted to keep who), some rehoming, and most unfortunately one runaway and 2 untimely deaths due to preexisting unknown health conditions. Kari and I moved in together with only 3, (Jellybean, Larry, and Allan). 3 turned into 4 (Ricky), 4 to 5 (Russell), 5 to 6 (Frankie), then simultaneously 7 and 8 (Archie and Chester) and then 9 (Ivy). Then we suddenly lost one (Ricky) to an unknown heart condition. Only to be followed by 2 more within a year (Margo and Phoebe) and that makes 10.
After dealing with the loss of a special boy (Goose) due to a runaway situation, and countless near escape attempts it was decided that we needed a catio. Myself, like many others, had never heard of such a thing. After much research a catio seemed like an appropriate solution to let our clan of furry beasts enjoy the outside world. Now I’m not some red seal carpenter, I’m just an average guy who is fairly intelligent, and happens to be very handy and knowledgeable about tools. I have an expert level knowledge of wood, having worked at a mill for 25 years, and being a licensed lumber grader certainly helps. So with all this going for me I decided to tackle catio 1.0
Living in a rental at the time I needed to be careful not to be destructive to any existing structure when building, but was able to construct what I thought was a great catio. Until a young Chester managed to escape. Some additional screws sealed up his escape route and everything was great until we bought a house and I needed to disassemble the catio. In doing this I could see several flaws in the design. And the original thought of reusing / rebuilding the catio was put on hold for some time as I knew it needed a redesign.
In this timeframe we started exploring the idea of building catios for other cat enthusiasts. And after building one for our very first customer I was able to come up with a robust, stable, somewhat easy to build design that has become our standard design for all the catios I have constructed so far. With each one being unique in their own ways it’s always fascinating and sometimes frustrating to see them come together. But ultimately as long as the cats and owners are happy, we are happy.
I wish I could do this full time, but at this stage in my life it’s far too risky to go all in on a niche product. So only having weekends and sometimes evenings for builds is about all I can manage for now. This unfortunately means that some people may need to be on a wait list. We are currently prioritizing by first come, first confirmed, first served. We will do our best to estimate when the builds can happen for our confirmed customers. Typical build time has been 2-3 full days on site and 10-15 hours in the shop.
Catio 1.0
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