How to Make a Stray Cat Happy

When the weather turned bitterly cold this past week, I began to pity the resident feline, which we had mercilessly banned from the house, although the cat seemed quite interested in cohabiting with us.

We left our dog house behind when we moved here from the farm, since we had no small animal pets to provide for, and I had no idea where the cat was finding shelter from the cold weather.  I began to poke around online to see what kind of outdoor shelter might be affordable and reasonable for our cat.  She's large and healthy and friendly, and a good hunter, and we'd like to keep her comfortably and happy.

I especially liked a translucent igloo-type house with a heated bed on the floor--thermostatically controlled, but it cost way too much.  Then I saw a question someone asked about this Amazon product, and it gave me an idea.

I suggested to Hiromi that we could make a shelter for the cat out of a large clear-plastic tote with a lid--like the ones made by Sterlite or Rubbermaid.  We could turn it upside down and cut an entry door into one end.  Rags on the floor (which is actually the lid) would make a comfortable bed.  During the day, solar heat gain would keep it warm, and during the night, with the opening turned away from the wind, the inside should stay comfortable.

Hiromi came home that evening with a 90-quart tote and a commercially-made cat bed shaped like the bottom of a small barrel, with one half of the "wall" cut higher than the other.  It was made of soft fabric, padded, with some stiffening inside to help it keep its shape.  (Hiromi can be a pushover when it comes to making provisions.  No rags for this cat.)

Hiromi had also planned that the door would not be a simple rectangle cutout reaching all the way to the bottom, but a rounded door with a straight, hinged top, so that there would be a strong reinforcing strip left at the bottom, and the door would swing freely in both directions.  He carefully traced around a whipped-topping container lid for the bottom of the door and used a ruler to complete the door shape straight up to the horizontal line that would form the top of the door.  He used a utility knife to start the cut, and then used a saber saw to complete the cut. A few slightly jagged edges resulted, and I had to help stabilize the tote, so it was a slightly messy process, but we soon had a door cut.

Hiromi temporarily used screws to hold the hinge in place while he measured and then shaved a trifle more off the bottom of the door to make it small enough to swing freely.  Next he used rivets to fasten the hinge permanently.  We placed the cat bed at one end of the lid with the low side facing the center, and then snapped the tote on top with the door at the end opposite the cat bed.  With duct tape, Hiromi taped the top and bottom together in several places.

It was already dark and cold when we put the bed outside.  To make it inviting, we put some cat food in a dish and drizzled juice form a can of tuna over it, then put the dish inside the "house."  Hiromi went in search of the cat.  When he found her, he opened the door and shoved her partly inside the house.  She ate the food, standing partly inside and partly outside the house.  She soon escaped.  The next morning the food dish was missing, and the cat was nowhere near her house.

We kept the door propped open, and I suggested that Hiromi might need to take the top of the house off so that the cat would learn to use the bed.  He tried it, and found the cat curled up in the bed when he got back from running an errand.

We reassembled the house and propped the door open.  Eventually we found her curled up inside the house inside the bed.  Then Hiromi dropped the door and shoved her in and out several times through the door.

Since then she comes and goes at will, and seems to spend a lot of time sleeping in the cat bed inside the snug little house.  We're all happy.