Miscellaneous Forum

My mother has a cat. This cat was adopted / rescued from the streets. One day, "Blackie" just showed up at my mum's house, hungry and disheveled. So we cleaned her up, got her vaccinated and sterilized, and since then she's been living a very happy existence. Blackie is an outdoor cat. My mum doesn't want her in the house and isn't a fan of cat toilets (well, I'm no fan either but it's a mere necessity!) so Blackie lives outside, which is all well and good until summer arrives. You see, Blackie isn't a "desert cat": Blackie resembles a typical European moggy, and is mostly likely a "British shorthair - chocolate" breed, meaning she has very thick fur... black fur... the worst kind of fur to have in a sunny hot country. Last year, my mother let Blackie inside the cool, air-conditioned house during the worst heat of the day... but because there was no cat toilet and my mum didn't hear Blackie's cries to be let out... let's just say Blackie had a little "accident" which was rather smelly and caused some costly dry cleaning bills for my mum's curtains. So this year, with daytime temperatures already reaching 40 degrees this month, and July temperatures reaching up to 50 degrees (Celsius), we all decided that Blackie could not stay outside or she'd surely succumb to the heat. And as she's not allowed inside, my husband (the great cat-lover and all-round softy) volunteered to build a small air-conditioned hut in the garden for Blackie to sleep during the heat of the day. So that's what we've been doing these past 2 days: sawing wood, drilling holes, fixing screws, measuring and building Blackie's "day-time cool zone" complete with a small, free-standing air-conditioning unit and a comfortable shelf for her to sleep on. Once summer is over, our next project will be to build an enclosure on our balcony for our indoor cats to be able to go outside safely and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. Have you gone out of your way for your pets? Any construction and design advice you'd like to share? :-)

I bought a house so that I could rescue a Pit Bull~!

How delightful and what a lucky pussy cat.Wish someone would build me a summer house LOL.:o)

hahah Dorrise! Jess, we seem to spend our lives building bird nesting boxes (the birds also use them to roost in during the winter) bat boxes and hibernating boxes for insects. We plant plants that attract insects and have two ponds so that the wildlife can drink and breed. As far as the pets go, I make soft toys for the dogs, little coats for when it is cold outside, dog beds with raised sides so that they are out of the draughts. I also *make* the dog beds every morning for them which they seem to enjoy. We also chase the dogs round the garden, buy them special low fat biscuits, get dentasticks for their teeth and they always get the bits of roast chicken that we don't eat. They also get regular grooming and their bits cleaned and paws checked.

We have a cat; our little Stevie. She has her own cat room complete with human bed for herself. She truly is our "furry child".