So I’m dealing with cats: specifically my cat, Lady Door, and my roommate’s cat, Nola. Door (Her Pampered Ladyship) has been acclimating to the new place for about a month, but Nola just arrived last weekend. Door has been restricted to my room, bathroom, and closet while Nola gets accustomed her new surroundings.
Fortunately, the bedroom and bathroom are pretty well set up for Door. I’m keeping her food in the bathroom, to put it as far from Nola’s as possible. And her litter box is in my room, behind this privacy screen. It’s an approach I actually highly recommend for cat owners: I’d always had a spare bathroom to keep her litter box in before, but this is working out much better. The fumes don’t get trapped in there, and I’m more motivated to keep it clean, so everybody’s happy.
But now we have to go to the next step, where I wedge the door to my room shut with something heavy and let them paw at each other through the crack. Hopefully this will work. I’ve never successfully introduced two cats before. (I stayed with my parents for a few months when I moved back east, and their cat spent pretty much the entire time on top of the china cupboard. Door’s a fighter, but not much of a jumper.)
Working feline accommodations into a nice design is always a challenge, especially if you can’t afford to spend a million dollars on a Swarovski-encrusted kitty litter palace or Craftsman-style kitty litter bungalow. (Or if you have the kind of prissyfaced prima donna cat who won’t subject her fragile nasal passages to the assault of an enclosed litter box. Not that I know anything about that.) It’s hard to get around the inherent unattractiveness of a box of poo. I had all kinds of thoughts about some kind of tent-like structure, but then you get into that prissy diva kitty thing again. The screen is a start, at least.