As you all know I love climbing and I do it a lot, even when I’m indoors, I climb this way and that and weaving in and out making use of every bit. I use them all so much that they get worn out and all the scratchy rope untangles and the fabric rips and tears. For ages I’ve been hinting at mummy and daddy that we need a new cat tree. I’ve meowed and meowed over and over again, I’ve climbed it very dramatically and loudly looking over my shoulder and meowing at mummy and daddy and finally they got the hint.
One day a big box arrived, mummy and daddy told us that it’s a present for us, a present how exciting! Well all cats love boxes so we immediately inspected it and course we had fun climbing all over it and giving it a good sniff, we played whose the queen of the box and had a great time, what a fab present 🎁. Then daddy said “no girls, it’s not just the box, there’s something inside for you” oh come on daddy what could be better than a big box to play on? “Well…” daddy said, “mummy and I have been getting your hints Jenny and so we bought you a new cat tree to climb. There’s just one catch, you’ve got to help mummy build it.” A new cat tree! Something new to climb! That gotta be the best present we’ve had in ages and as you all know I’m a great supervisor so helping mummy build it should be easy peasy.
Step 1:
Help mummy unpack the box and assume the position of supervisor. Direct mummy to start building whilst making sure Millie makes sure we’ve got all the right pieces and they meet our high quality standards.
Step 2:
We all know hoomans are very bad at following instructions so you must double check them and make sure they’re doing it right. If you spot them making an error then you need to tell them, generally by a lying down protest as this stops them from working and you can then point out where they went wrong. It would be a disaster if mummy put the wrong pole on now as it would make everything else after that be wrong as well and she’d have to back and do it all over again!
Step 3:
As mummy builds, make sure to check that everything is tight and sturdy and the shelves are in the right place and they’re properly level so we don’t slide off. Here you can see Angelin’s testing the little shelf, it seems mummy has done a good job so far as she hasn’t slid off.
Step 4:
Make sure each part of the new tree is the right size, if you are lucky enough to have a house as part of your new cat tree then make sure it’s big and cosy enough to chill out in and that it’s suitably robust for playing, climbing and fighting on and in before it’s fixed into the proper place. It’s impawtant to do this before it’s fixed into place coz once it’s secured in place mummy wouldn’t be very happy if it wasn’t quite right.
Step 5:
As you all know I’m all about safety first when climbing and indoor climbing is no different. So you need to complete your safety checks and make sure it’s well balanced and not at all wibbly wobbly. I make sure the hammock is not only the right size but that it doesn’t fall off when I’m in it. Then as Millie is the heaviest, it’s her job to go up onto the top to make sure it doesn’t fall over when there’s more than one of us playing on it. We wouldn’t want it to topple over after all.
Step 6:
Having worked so hard and for so long, it’s time to enjoy the fruits of your labour and test out our (I mean mummy’s) handywork. This is definitely best done before the new tree is installed in its final position. As mummy and daddy always say with us helping everything takes twice as long coz we’re having twice the fun. Plus we make sure mummy does it all properly, there’s no cutting corners when I’m supervising.
Step 5:
Once you’ve had the chance to try it out you need to give it some rigorous testing. As it turns out with this tree and us perfectly imperfect cats was hat having the hammock right up on the top with the big platform lower down made it very hard for us to get up and down safely, the drop from the platform to the house porch was almost vertical. So I meowed at mummy and daddy when I tried to get down to tell them it was too difficult, not for me of course but for Angelin who doesn’t like leaning over the edge. Mummy and daddy listened to me (of course) and took on board my suggestion to swap the platform and hammock round. This was much better and now we have the purrfect indoor climbing tree.
Step 6:
Claim your castle.
Jenny’s Story 