Today I decided to winterize the catio. I thought about doing it last year but never did. It’s become sort of a necessity because the cat door in the dining room window keeps blowing open creating a very cold draft. I bought some clear plastic tarp at Home Depot and used my Dewalt power stapler to attach it to the catio and connector.
Here’s a view of the cat door from the yard – you can see in the 2nd pic how it blows open into the dining room. The constant wind off the River doesn’t help:
I cut lengths of tarp and used my stapler to attach it:
I did the connector first:
There was a immediate and huge improvement with the draft! Then I did the River side & door side of the catio:
So far, Darwin is terrified of the tarp. He sticks his head out the cat door and jumps every time the tarp crinkles, snaps, or moves in the wind, then bolts back into the house. Hopefully he’ll realize soon enough it’s not going to get him and he’ll start going out! I’m hoping the tarp will make it a nicer place for them to be when it’s windy or snowing. There are still uncovered spots for them to spy on birds and people walking by on the street side.
This never worked out and I ended up ripping the tarps down and the cats didn’t go back out until Spring. Darwin never got over his fear of the tarps, and during wind and rain, the water got in past the tarps.
Love you catio and all the info…I have a 20 x 60 garden enclosure that is also a catio plus a 50′ run from the house into the enclosure…during the Winters here in Utah I use a heavy duty clear plastic that I staple to the 50′ run and then when snowtime is past I remove and store for the next Winter…the run is shaped like a triangle so it doesn’t collect snow on the top but just along the sides…my cat loves to lie out in it during the winter …solar heat..haha
Cool!!! Do you have photos? I’d love to see! I might try to winterize it again this year. Need to do a better job of securing the plastic so it doesn’t make noise and scare Darwin.
Oh the things we do for our cats, and then they don’t even appreciate it. Hopefully, he learns soon.
I know, right? Yep, the following morning he was racing out there like nothing was different 🙂
Making the catio into a nine to twelve month enclosure is a great idea. The cats (even Darwin) will eventually thank you for it..
I must say, Darwin is a most interesting cat. He’s supremely confident with people – he greets everyone at your door, whether he knows them or not, tail up in the air, happy to be the official greeter.
But, things that he’s not familiar with, like the wall of snow at your front door the year you had a horrendous winter, or the rustling of newly added plastic in his enclosure , and he turns into a wimpy scaredy cat. He’s such a contradiction – but that’s part of what makes him so interesting.
he’s a very funny cat!!! he always needs to be involved in everything we’re doing. it is strange how confident he is, yet how scared he is of the unknown! but we don’t know what his life was like prior to jim adopting him from the shelter, so that could explain some of it.