Rancho Coastal Humane Society Catio Gets a Catification Makeover!

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Last month my Catification cohort, Jackson Galaxy, and I teamed up with the Petco Foundation to makeover a catio at Rancho Coastal Humane Society in Encinitas, California. The goal of the project was to create a space where visitors and cats can mingle comfortably as they get to know one another, hopefully creating bonds that lead to joyful adoptions and forever homes for lots of Rancho Coastal cats.

We started with an existing outdoor patio area and completely catified it. The old wood fence was replaced with new white vinyl fencing and the stone pavers were replaced. Even though cats will always be supervised in the catio, PurrfectFence was added to the top of the vinyl fencing so no cats can accidentally escape.

We added a beautiful blue vinyl canopy over the entire catio area, creating shade and keeping the space dry when it rains. The blue of the canopy set the tone for the ocean-inspired color palette.

I worked with Rancho Coastal’s stellar handyman, Matt (who can build anything!), to create custom cat shelves and cubby boxes, all painted in the ocean-themed colors. As you can see, the cats loved the shelves the moment they were introduced to the catio!

We filled the catio with beach-themed accessories, including an adorable cat beach chair and fabric tent from The Purring Saw, a fish-shaped cat tree, lots of comfy beds and custom fleece hammocks that I made for the cubby boxes. A bistro table and chairs, two blue plastic Adirondack chairs and a storage bench with thick cushions provide plenty of comfortable seating options for humans. These plastic rattan poufs are perfect for a catio, both cats and people can sit on them and they can be hosed down as needed.

You may recognize the handsome Feeny from Rancho Coastal’s submission for the National High-five Day Contest, where he high-fives a cardboard cutout of Jackson! If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it on Facebook.

Decorative pots of cat grass bring some greenery into the space, along with a luxury cat tree from On2Pets that has three levels covered with silk leaves so cats can feel like they are outside stalking their prey. Available from Petco.com.

And of course we added lots of beach-themed cat toys, including the Leaps & Bounds Fish Kicker Toy from Petco, Petlink’s Tipsy Turtle Cat Toy, and Jackson’s Go Fish.

This project was brought to life by a team of incredible volunteers from Petco, Merrick, Blue Buffalo and Rancho Coastal, coordinated through the Petco Foundation. The volunteers helped build, sand and paint the shelves and cubby boxes, they assembled the furniture and planted cat grass. We couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help! Also, a big thank you to Pet Fusion for donating lots of their awesome scratcher lounges and to Pioneer Pet for sending over their Swan Fountains and their new gray Ultimate Scratching Post. 

Thank you to Judi, Matt, Mary and all the amazing people at Rancho Coastal Humane Society, as well as the fantastic team from the Petco Foundation for making this project happen. If you’re ever in the San Diego area, please swing by Rancho Coastal and hangout with the cats in the catio!

More info at rchumanesociety.org.

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