The things we do for our pets

Gratuitous Nola Picture

So I got a free cat...

Lol not really, I paid a little for her, or at least the vet work that had been done for her.  But some of you will remember the "So I got a free horse..." from many years ago that makes the rounds every couple years and this may resonate.

Enola came home with us, and since she was on trial, the bare minimum of stuff was acquired to support her (think compostable temporary litter bin, a cardboard box with air holes as her carrying container, a cardboard scratch pad, and free food).  We hadn't even made it home when that list expanded to include some basic toys and treats ;)

I'm not even sure the trial was officially over when that list expanded to make her as spoiled as our dogs ;).  A tree, a proper case, high quality food, ALL the toys and treats and scratchy things, etc.

But the latest bout of ridiculousness was as much about Enola's people as it was for Enola.   You see, feeding her on the ground is a problem, as the dogs still somehow out rank her in the hierarchy AND she is a grazer while they generally wolf down anything in sight.   Which means, her food on the ground means not only does she NOT get said food, but they also get EXTRA very high fat food.  Less ideal.

We also did not want her on the kitchen table or counters.   While she's allowed pretty much everywhere in the house, those spaces are no go zones -- which she mostly respects.   But I wasn't about to feed her there; that would definitely be sending the wrong message.

Now we do have a pass through between our kitchen and living room - this proved to be somewhat ideal as it's easily accessible to her, completely inaccessible to the dogs, and a location I don't mind her going.  Great.

Except...

It's been a number of years since I've had a cat, and I'd forgotten the overwhelming stench of their food.  Even the good quality food.  And on the passthrough, it gives that stench access to our entire downstairs.  Less good.

So okay, try with a side table that we could move elsewhere.  High enough - check.  Stable enough...?  Definitely not :(.  First time she jumped up with any force, well...   cat one direction, food another, and table yet another.  Broken cat dish.  Booo :( 

So then we tried with a square side table from our outdoor furniture.  Stable enough - check.  High enough?  Not quite...  It got her off the ground and away from Tucker, but Sasha was quite happy to polish off every meal she didn't finish.  Fail.

Go online to find other solutions - quite a few that involve sticking boards to walls, which would be okay, but most were really ugly.   Chris found one on Marketplace that looked great, but they were only selling the board - no hardware.  And at that price, I needed a full solution.  Fail.  Went to Ikea and a few other places and walked around looking at appropriate sized random furniture but most was either the wrong size, not stable enough, or too expensive.

Then we found a guy who makes cat tables for exactly this purpose?!?!  At a reasonable price!  Win.  The catch?   Windsor.

Yeah - by this point I was okay with that 😂.   He made us the table, and I went on my 7.5-ish hour round trip to go collect it.  Other than the 20 min snowstorm, was awesome.  AND the drive goes by the Cinnabon in the Flying J outside of London, so that's an extra win ;).  I definitely drastically underestimated how much past London Winsor actually is, but not tragic.

So now Nola has her own furniture, we generally don't smell the cat food, and Sasha stares longingly at the table that is too tall for her to get on.

My not-at-all-spoiled feline