FABULOUS PROJECTS FOR YOUR FURRY, FEATHERED, AND AMPHIBIOUS FRIENDS
by Carmela “Mel” Falsetta
Pets are great for our demeanors – a widely accepted belief, but how good are they for our everyday lives? Well, for one – we let pets live with us, in our very own homes and now there’s a new way for us to express our feelings for them.
The idea is in a book called Pads for Pets, by Elizabeth Quinn. The basic point is that pet lovers, in addition to doing the usual things, can expand on the “place for the pet” idea by recycling everyday items, some might call them junk, for your dog or cat, or even your toad’s living space. Quinn put it this way, “Just as many children have a room of their own, why not honor our pets by creating a fun space for them to call their own.”
Remove the lenses from an old pair of binoculars, attach them to a pole, and let the smaller birds live in the lens sockets. Now that’s recycling! Or take a couple of your older sheets and a piece of rope and you have the makings of a “pup tent” for Fido and Fifi.
What Quinn has done is bring together the ideas of many pet lovers who fancy themselves as “petchitects,” from a play on the word architect. Essentially, their contributions are ‘how to’s’, or projects that include a list of necessary materials plus instructions on how best to make them real. They vary in difficulty, and the reader is informed by the number of paw prints, from one to four, it receives.
There were more projects that the book could hold, so we chose to give you one you won’t see in Pads for Pets.
“Big Bird” Feral Cat Jungle Gym by Kris Borchardt
The petchitect for this piece lives on Mount Davidson in San Francisco, which has an extensive feral cat community. She wanted to provide a place for these “adopted” pets to play, as a sort of reward for letting her capture and inoculate them at the local SPCA.
TOOLS AND SUPPLIES:
- Phillips or flat-head screwdrivers
- abdominal cruncher
- old desk lamp with pivoting head
- drill
- 4 one-inch diameter rubber balls
- pillow feathers
- plastic bag
- nontoxic glue
- several feet of plastic-coated wire
- wire cutters
- TV antennae, the old-fashioned kind with two antennae and a base
- two 1/4-inch by 2-inch bolts with nuts
- exterior enamel spray paint
- pliers
- “Warning, Cats at Play” sign
- staple gun or hammer
- small nails
- indoor/outdoor carpet
- small wood plank
- 2 salad fork tongs
- 2 cinderblocks or tent stakes
DIRECTIONS:
-Using a screwdriver, remove the seat, headrest, and any extraneous parts from the abdominal cruncher. This will be the backbone or skeleton of the “Big Bird.”
-Remove the hinged lamp head/arm from its base and set aside.
-Drill a 1/16-inch hole through each rubber ball.
-Place the feathers in the plastic bag.
-Coat 2 balls with nontoxic glue, place in the bag, and, using the “shake-n-bake” method, coat with feathers. Let dry for about 24 hours.
-Thread a 20-inch length of coated wire through one non-feathered and one feathered ball. Knot or bend the wire to keep the balls from sliding off, and trim with wire cutters to remove any sharp extrusions. Repeat with the remaining 2 balls.
-Now, using the holes created by the seats and pads you have removed from the ab cruncher, mark and drill corresponding holes in the lamp arm and antenna base.
-Place the 2-inch bolts through the holes and connect the lamp head and antennae. Tighten the nuts to hold the antenna and lamp in place. Make sure you have placed the center of the antennae near the “breastbone” so that you can extend the arms out to the sides like wings. The connections may vary, depending on the type of lamp used, placement of the holes, and other variables.
-Spray paint the entire bird skeleton.
-Using the plastic-coated wire, hang the balls from the ends of the antennae. Use pliers to bend the antenna ends so that they hold the wire, and tie the wire to the antennae. The balls can hang at whatever lengths you desire, but they should be just out of reach of cats.
-Staple or nail the indoor/outdoor carpet to the wooden plank. Attach the plank to the back or front of the bird. This will help stabilize the piece, while serving as a scratching post.
-Remove the rubber stops from the tube ends of the abdominal cruncher, and insert the salad forks to serve as feet.
-If the bird needs to be stabilized, place the cinderblocks over the feet. Or you can push two tent stakes through the bottom bar of the abdominal cruncher, and tap them into the ground to secure the bird. Placing the whole contraption on a level surface will also help.
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