Because Kitten was diagnosed with FIV we had to find the kindest way we could of keeping him as an indoor cat. He’s not likely to infect any other cats but he could easily pick up cat flu or some other nasty virus due to his reduced immunity. He never went out much anyway but then neither do I and if someone told me I could never leave my house I’d get a bit restless!
So, we decided to cat-proof the yard, at least then he can have some outdoor space and sit in the sun.
The plan was to attach a cat-net over the top of the whole yard so he couldn’t climb out. We needed to make the fence higher to do this so tall people wouldn’t have to crouch!
We bought some trellis and stained it a blue-grey colour to tone down the brash orange.
Then I attached a batten to the top of the fence to support the trellis.
The trellis was attached to posts at each end and then drilled through to the fence behind so I could secure it with huge screws.
Our gate was only waist high so that had to go. I decided to replace it with a sturdy piece of trellis we found at the hardware shop – it is sturdier than some of the gates we saw! We also wanted t be able to see through it to the garden and all the tall gates were solid.
I attached a block of wood to the trellis so I could use a traditional gate latch.
Then I hung the gate (I said it quick but it took ages to get it right, with lots of cursing and accusing my family of being useless)
We painted the fence too, just to make it look a bit nicer – we’ll get round to painting the rest of the fence at some point but we were pushed for time.
Then it was just a case of getting up on a ladder and screwing in loads of hooks all around the edge to hang the net from. The net comes with the hooks and also a length of rope that you weave through the edge to make it tighter and secure.
It’s a transparent net from Zooplus and cost around £15 – in fact the whole thing including trellis and paint cost less than £100. You can see the net quite a lot from outside but from inside it doesn’t feel like we are boxed in and it is fairly unobtrusive.
While we were getting things from Zooplus we splashed out on a little house! Isn’t it cute? Look at those little steps!
Kitten, true to form, has so far ignored it. Oh, and he hasn’t escaped either. He tried to climb the gate once but couldn’t and hasn’t tried since.
Beccy
Posts
This is wonderful. What a lucky cat.
ReplyDelete