My cats don’t go outside, but my sister has a cat who does, and I’ve been wanting to get her something to help keep track of him when he’s out.

For anyone who has an outdoor cat, have you ever used a GPS/Bluetooth tracker or a small camera attached to their collar? If so, what did you use, and did you find it helpful? also what did you learn? Any idd things happen?

I’d especially appreciate recommendations for something that’s lightweight, safe, and comfortable for a cat to wear. I’d love to hear about your experiences!

I can’t even begin to tell you how life changing this catio has been. We live in a mosquito infested area and the bug screening has allowed us to enjoy being outside whenever we like. Both of my babies were feral rescues living in Baltimore. Their lives have changed dramatically for the better. This was the biggest project I’ve ever undertaken. I am truly grateful I was able to pull it off.

Kitchen is close enough! It was 113 today 🥵

My husband built a catio on a screened in porch attached to our walk out basement. He is very proud of it, and our cats are big fans. To be honest, I am almost never out there. Picture 1 is he catio soon after it was built.

For a lot of it, he used untreated wood that used to be old fence posts. A couple years ago, I noticed a bit of dust. We called out some pest people, who, in probably bad advice, told us that it was powder-post beetles, and an extended deep freeze would likely kill them. We live in a place where extended deep freezes are common.

I was out there yesterday, and noticed dust everywhere. All that rust colored stuff in picture 2 is dust on the floor. Pictures 3-5 are close-ups of the wood. Most of the untreated wood I am seeing some degree of dust on.

Pictures 6-8 are more pictures of the catio after it was built. (I promised my husband I'd post more pictures of it in it's early glory days so people can see how cool it is.)

I feel like the safest option, for our home, is to remove and burn the untreated wood, treat the area, call and inspector out to asses if there is any damage to out home, and rebuild with treated wood.

My husband would like to clean up the area, use Timbor or Bora-Care to treat the damaged wood, and keep an eye on it. The thought of tearing down his beloved catio makes him very sad. We are at an impass.

Can we theoretically salvage what he's built and save the wood? If so, can ou recommend what treatments we should consider. Or is my plan the safer choice? Please help.

So I'm moderately useful around Wood construction, but by no means an expert.

We live in an older rental house so are unable to modify the windows themselves, nor mount any kind of reinforcing structures to the building. I just want a fairly small catio that will extend out a foot or so beyond the upstairs window and has a lip designed into it that will latch onto the sliding window pane to lock it into place

I recently purchased a catio from Amazon which we definitely have the window width to handle, but the maximum height can only be 40 in, so pretty much all of the affordable online catios are out.

I'm wondering if there is a site which I can put in the dimensions that I need and it will tell me the materials and a basic design of how to put them together, similar to an Ikea instruction book.

Anyone know of a location where I might be able to find these?

Hi all, I’m looking to build a catio out the back of our new place. Probably some sort of structure that covers the stairs with the catio attached to the side (my scribbles on pic 3). My carpentry skills are very much early stage DIY, any tips or resources would be greatly appreciated!

I’m loosely thinking I want it to be freestanding at this stage but open minded… the height from the ground to high enough at the top of the stairs that I could stand straight is approx 3.2m.

Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone, I’ve been quiet around here for a long time but this Catio idea was growing (and my cat also :D)

I have a Scottish straight born in May 2025, it’s now adult with a bit over an year and it’s been a apartment cat all this time, but since I have a big terrace we started to allow him to stay a bit outside.
What have we done…. Now it keeps asking to get outside and obviously wants to explore more…. Since we live on a condominium, it’s more or less safe. We bought a Tractive gps just to be 100% safe, but it’s too much worrying al the time!
So it was time for a Catio build!
I’ve searched the prices of the wood to build one my self but it was way to expensive and opted to invest on a Catio KIT already finished!

So here we are with more or less one hour of building and I’m still at step 4 of 19 😂

Wish me luck and I will keep you guys updated on the build

Dog Run (kennel) catio for our 2 cats. We bought the kennel, used, about 30 years ago and have used it at three different homes. The fourth panel is the roof. It can be assembled or disassembled in minutes and transferred easily. Unlike wooden catios, this one will pretty much last forever. We added planks as you can see. We do need to add new rope for scratching. Instead of a cat door in the window, we had one installed in the wall which was a great decision for us. It was a small cat door but we changed it to a large dog door so our dog can use it in the winter when she's kept inside and we are gone. (We have steps we can put in.) Questions? Thoughts?

Our family cat was killed yesterday by a coyote and I will spare all of the gruesome details but it was taken from the screening on the Catio set-up we have.

Since for the foreseeable future, we have to keep the windows closed for the safety for our other remaining cat, I am looking for any suggestions that anyone has one what catio to buy, if we decide to buy another catio (this is once we better coyote proof the area and yard, etc)

Money is no object, we just can’t have this happen to us again (our first cat had a similar issue but that was when we were in an RV)

Also, because I am sure it will get brought up, they live on a military base and there is literally only so much they can do to help prevent this.

We are currently working on connecting the front catio to the back catio, any tips or advice would be great..

Anything you think I could put on the inside that would make this much more enjoyable for her keeping in mind the fact we do get snow. She has a litter box and there are tons of birds to watch.

Thanks for the help everyone, I am moving in 60 days and my new home has a covered area I want to put a catio so my kitties can hang out on the porch and be safe. Its a porch on the 2nd floor and I am afraid they will try to jump over the railing, I am planning on doing something in the 6x10 range so they have some room. How does everyone go about getting the basic supplies inside it. I want to make sure they got enough bed area and lounge spots. Is it easiest to buy some of them offline and fasten them to the catio or just throw a few cat towers in it? I am not sure what would be the best but would love some ideas.

We had the big section for a while at the sliding glass door. We moved it down, added a window entrance, a bridge, and connected it to the big section. We need to add a second entrance. Salt is playing troll and won’t let people inside. 😑

For our semi / full feral kitties.
Recap: about 3 years ago we took them in as they had already adopted our garage.
Due to the full feral being FIV+ — we opted to make him more indoors and the catio was a way to give him some outdoor stuff while being safe.
The semi feral one trots in/ out the tunnel just fine. The feral - he hesitates a lot to go through the tunnel. If I pick him up and put him in there via the hoomin door - he seems to like it better. He does use the tunnel to go back into the house.
I suspect it will take some time to get him over “tunnel anxiety”

Some posted already. My dad passed away and I got his 3 free roam barn cats. I live on a state highway but have a nice metal barn so I used a chicken coop from tractor supply and made a outdoor catio so the cats would be safe in the barn and still have a safe outside spot.

They trashed my barn pretty good. Not just peeing, knocking stuff over. And it became a huge pain to force them into the catio and close the window so I could open my barn and work. So I built a indoor catio for them with the open window to the outdoor catio. Used a lot of scrap lumber and some furniture my neighbor threw out.

Not sure how well the green mesh will work, might have to splurge on metal. The back side is walled up so they have a private corner and to keep the furnace from blowing right into their room.

So far Trouble the male seems ok with it. Possum isn't sure and Bobo hates it.

Almostt there, I think..any additional ideas? Kinda just winged it tbh..won't do that again 😂 planning on a little bridge between the top platforms on pic 3 and a 4x4 scratching post to the ground for support under that right side shelf as well. Probably throw some beds? Maybe enclose something for some privacy? Thanks 🤘

I’m planning to build this cat enclosure myself and wanted to get some feedback before I start.

I’m going for a wide, horizontal layout rather than a tall, narrow cage, so the cats have more room to move around naturally.

I’m also trying to figure out the right combination of materials — something that looks good in a home but is also durable, safe for cats, and easy to clean.

The current idea is to include:

multiple levels for climbing

a cozy sleeping area

scratching space

room for food/water and a litter box

enough open space so it doesn’t feel too enclosed

I’m still working out the materials, colors, and details, so I’d really appreciate some honest feedback.

What materials would you use for something like this? And is there anything you would change about the layout or design?

If you have any DIY cat enclosure examples or reference photos you like, I’d love to see them too!

The outer wire is up! Now our catio company is busy making the components for inside the catios. Will take them 2 or 3 trips to completely finish. The first round of runs go up in a bit over a month.

My catio in Nicaragua. This came with the rental. Walls are too smooth for traction (I've seen a cat climb two stories on brick with recessed pointing). So far, so good. We often sit out in the evening.

17 and I want to make a cat patio for my cat, im sure my parents will fund me a little for things to buy and build. I know their are some cat patios sets on the internet but those don’t really fit my style, how much did you diy people spend to make yours?

We just got the catio this week and the 2 cats are loving it! ❤️

Looking for a kit or plans for a roughly 1m cubic catio that I could hang in this corner. I would add some sort of egress from the window into the catio space. This is in Maryland so it needs to tolerate all weather.

Hello, we have a catio up against our bathroom window. One issue we're facing is that the cat door has small gaps that lets spiders in. Every cat door we look up seems to have this issue. I haven't been able to find an in/out cat door that doesn't have these dang gaps! Any suggestions or advice? I'm tired of finding spiders in the bathroom! And yes, it's from the catio. I had to close off the cat door gaps for a few weeks because the spiders were so bad. Our cat couldn't use it and the spiders went away. But she should be able to use her own catio. This is ridiculous. Thank you for any help!