My partner and I have been talking about making some cat paths in our house since long before we owned our house. We recently got 2 new dogs, so now it is a high priority project. The first step was putting up some shelves in the hallway and making a portal from the hallway to the bedroom closet (you can see it just above the tent). The surround for the portal is this 3D printed tunnel

https://www.printables.com/model/3068-cat-door

The next project is going to be putting a portal from the spare bedroom into the stairwell so they can go up and down floors without the dogs being in the way

https://i.imgur.com/rxI55E4.jpg

  • Devi@beehaw.orgEnglish
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    9 months ago

    You can get some premade pieces to add to this, I have one of these which they use to climb up and as a scratching post, and this bed which acts as a resting point along with my standard shelves. Neither were very expensive.

    • Vodulas [they/them]@beehaw.orgOP
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      9 months ago

      I dig that scratching post! The bed looks nice too, but I think I could make something like that. We don’t want to put anything quite that wide in the hallway though

      • Devi@beehaw.orgEnglish
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        9 months ago

        You definitely could. Theres also these hammocky type beds. They look too small for my cats but don’t stick out from the wall very far and if you’re DIYing it then you could make them bigger.

  • meowbotage@beehaw.org
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    9 months ago

    I love this idea, it’s really cute! I like the secret doorway, it’s probably good for them to have a secondary escape path.

    • Vodulas [they/them]@beehaw.orgOP
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      9 months ago

      Yup! We keep the dogs in the bedroom at night, and there is a cat portal in the door as well. That way they have 2 exits. I’ll post pics of the stairwell one when we get it done

  • rhythmisaprancer@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    I have to admit I didn’t know what cat paths were, and am still unsure, but after seeing cat shelves I’m looking forward to finding out!

        • Vodulas [they/them]@beehaw.orgOP
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          9 months ago

          The dogs don’t really pay attention to them. We put them above their head level, so unless there is a cat on the shelf, they just walk in past. Even then they are not too curious about them, which for us is a good thing. One of our cats (the closer one in that pic) is the biggest scaredy cat, so the shelves and portals have really helped him with being more confident around the new dogs.