Cat Tree Kingdom

When the UPS driver first handed me the package, I thought there must be some mistake. The box resting in my arms only weighed about 12 pounds and measured about 17×20. Surely a Deluxe Kitty Condo couldn’t be inside, could it? I opened the box. An assortment of carpeted tubes and several different types of plastic connectors met my eye. Dumping the contents on the floor, I found the instructions and started reading. Just then, my husband Mike walked into the room. Mike (an extreme left-brained individual who never reads instructions and puts items together in a matter of minutes) waved away the proffered instructions, and set to work. Twenty minutes later with no tools required, the condo was fully assembled and sitting on our living room floor. The unit looked promising. Built on a concept similar to Tinker Toys, the unit locks together and can grow upwards and/or outwards, starting with a basic coffee-table shaped base. Additional pieces provided snap together easily and cleanly...

Although many cat owners attribute their cat tearing and scratching the carpet as “bad behavior,” the truth is, cats need to scratch on all sorts of firm surfaces. Scratching allows them to shed off the castings of their claws, sharpen their tips while leaving their mark stating they have been there. Scratching on solid objects also permits them the opportunity to stretch their back muscles. They don’t scratch out of boredom or to upset the humans in their lives. They scratch purely by instinct. When the cat scratch box arrived, my cats were immediately intrigued running over to take a look at the newest cat product in the house. Set in an attractive mahogany frame, the scratching pad measured 14”x28” making it large enough for more than one cat at a time to enjoy. Immediately, my alphas’ Matuse and Oliver claimed their right to this fine piece of feline furniture. As their claws found purchase in the filler (heavy-duty industrial corrugated cardboard, I braced myself waiting for th...