Play Structures for Cats

Cats love to spend their days snoozing and playing. Combining these favorite activities into one purchase can be accomplished by getting the right feline furniture. Explore the world of cat structures made with toys, moving parts, beds and scratch posts. Find out which features make your cat purr and get shopping.

  1. Essential Features

    • Cats love to scratch and stretch. Any play area or play building made for a cat should have a space made to allow a cat to stretch its entire body. Felines also need a good material to dig their claws into such as cardboard, wood, rope or carpeting. Even cats that don't have claws still get the instinct to stretch, so make sure they have a good place to do it.

    Sleep Time

    • Many good play structures come with areas for a kitty to catch a cat nap. The sleeping areas that cats love best are often snug and tight to their body. When your cat is sleeping, observe that they like to roll into a ball. Take a note of your cat's approximate size when rolled up. Most cats love a sleep area that will hug them snugly while they sleep. Some cats really prefer to sleep in privacy and will like a completely enclosed structure; these are generally called cat condos. For placement, most cats like the warmest spot in a house, so it's best to place it near a window that gets a lot of sunlight.

    Selecting the Right Extras

    • Some cat structures come loaded with lots of bells and whistles like balls that make noise, balls on a spring, feathers, birds or catnip-filled play mice. Knowing a cat's personality is key to selecting the right extras on a play structure. Most younger cats and almost all kittens like to bat around anything on a chain or spring; older cats tend to be more relaxed and may not like or use noisy toys.

    Deluxe Cat Structures

    • The most deluxe cat structures are called a cat gym or cat tower. These are generally the most elaborate and most expensive cat structures. They can be over 6 feet tall. They have separate play areas, sleeping spots, enclosed condos, hanging toys and lots of scratch area. They have multilevel play regions that cats can jump around on. These structures can help satisfy a cat's desire to have its own space, scratch, sleep and play, but they take up a lot of human space and therefore are not for everybody.