Sleek, Modern, Vertical Cat Enrichment
As you all know by now, I cannot get enough of fun enrichment ideas for cats! In this article, I’m presenting an awesome idea for vertical spaces for cats. Before I get ahead of myself, I will let our guest do the talking! We interviewed Aaron Feldman, CEO and lead designer of CatScapes. This company providing a new way to make the most out of cat shelving installations. Here’s what Aaron had to say!
What gave you the inspiration to create CatScapes?
Arlo. He was climbing the walls before there were any shelves on them. He needed to be high up and he needed to run. I noticed that there is no elegant, cohesive, and adaptable climbing system on the market that allows a person to customize wall-mounted ramps and runways for cats to zoom at full speed indoors. If cats are anything like humans, they are happiest and healthiest when they can use and express their full physical potential, so it feels genuinely important to me to facilitate this for cats.
What would you like cat guardians to know?
CatScapes Cat Shelves are not merely cat shelves. They are ramps, runways, and platforms that allow cats to behave like cats. Other cat shelves are really just perches for napping and looking cute. The reason our modular system does not exist already is because someone had to invent hinge-brackets. They are the key to unlimited designs and playportunities for cats.
What benefits have you seen from offering cats vertical space?
Most cats feel safest above the fray. Especially when there are children, dogs, multiple cats, or guests in their home, and even on their own, it’s a meaningful and valuable instinct to honor. As with humans, cats feel at ease when their defenses and preferences are respected and attended to.
The beauty of CatScapes is that you can arrange a safe path down from the virtual tree they love to climb, so we’re emulating the best of nature with some added features!
Tell us more about your products.
There are three kits from which to choose. Each provides more shelves and more brackets, and all can be combined to form ever-extending and expanding configurations. The brackets can be purchased individually as well, should the customer wish to parse the kits into smaller configurations or even use their own boards.
The shelves are a finished smooth pine, crafted to fit with the brackets optimally. The carpet is a claw-friendly cut-pile. The brackets are made with a grade of plastic used in race cars and aerospace parts so that they can withstand the pressure of cats in motion and even jumping (conservative weight limit is 75lbs.). All elements are colored a soft gray that goes beautifully with white and off-white as well as with colors, plus the brackets and shelves can be painted.
An advantageous and ultimately cost-effective aspect of CatScapes Cat Shelves, is that everything is modular, including the carpet pads. So you can keep the brackets and shelves and simply replace the carpet pads when you wish. All you need is an ordinary Allen key.
Are your products easy to install?
CatScapes Cat Shelves are surprisingly easy to install. Unlike many cat shelves, you don’t need much room above, below, or beside, which is important when you’re positioning shelves close to corners, the ceiling, or to the floor if you’re making a ramp for older cats. The brackets are installed from the front. All you need is an Allen key and screwdriver. You don’t even need a ruler, because the shelves themselves are used to determine the placement of the brackets! (See video on Installation page of website.)
What makes your product better than other vertical space options?
In addition to all of the points made above, most notably the complete customizability and the capacity for cats to run and play to the heart’s content, CatScapes Cat Shelves offer unprecedented structural stability. The angled shelves (or ramps), being interconnected at the brackets and rigid, form gigantic L-brackets. The more interconnected shelves and the steeper the angles, the more exciting the configuration is for the cats and the more stable the structure becomes!
Are you going to any cat conventions this year?
We are looking forward to attending conventions and trade shows as soon as we have the products in hand. If not this season, then we certainly hope by next, but this is why we need people to back our Kickstarter campaign and to support our efforts even after the campaign.
How can we find your products?
Through midnight of April 19, 2019, our kits and brackets will be available on Kickstarter.
After that, refer to our website for updates.
https://www.catscapes.com/catapulting-catscapes
What’s next for your brand?
Launch, launch, launch. We hope to bring CatScapes Cat Shelves to market this year. Once we are up and running, we can pursue and then reveal the equally amazing ideas and plans we have in store. CatScapes is a deep and comprehensive vision rooted in our love cats, engineering, and design. We hope you’ll join us in the adventure!