Cat Containment and Other Feline Fun
Enter the Cat
Last October, my beautiful daughter surprised us by bringing home a hamster. It was only supposed to be home with her on weekends and live with her in the school dorm during the week. Employees at her school had some exceptionally harsh methods of enforcing the no pets rule (especially when related to rodents), so after 2 weeks, the mouse hamster became a permanent resident of our home in the village.
I’d had hamsters when I was in kindergarten. I did love those little balls of fur (and teeth) back then, but found dogs and cats to be much more fun to play with. At first, I did my best to ignore the new rodent, but this one was a little more entertaining than average. 99 (don’t ask me – my daughter named her that) walks around on her hind legs enough to freak people out, and keeps trying to climb upside down inside her 2 story plexiglass cage. Once she was past the “bite all humans” stage, I got to like her.
In February, my daughter ending up winning a rabbit in a ring toss game down at People’s Park. Ah joy – as if the rats attacking my rooftop garden and occasionally sneaking into the house weren’t bad enough, now we were filling the house with other rodents. 
The cage the bunny came in was barely big enough to hold him, so we went to the older part of downtown (across the canal) and visited Pet Street in the old shopping district to find a bigger cage.
While at Pet Street, I was lamenting that the house really isn’t designed to handle a cat or a dog. Then I met a cat. Not a normal cat, but a very large silver cat with black stripes. 
He was living in a big cage (3 levels and over 1.5 m tall) with another cat and seemed happy. All of my previous cats that were contained in any way only wanted one thing – escape. This cat appeared to be perfectly at ease in the cage – his only demand was to be petted through the bars.
A Princely Cat on Pet Street
Alas, even if I could somehow make the house “cat secure”, there was no way that a cat and a rabbit would make good roommates. Still, the wheels were already set in motion, and I mentioned to my lovely wife and daughter that we should consider a cat if anything ever happened to the rabbit.
The rabbit was happy with the new cage (bought from the same seller who had that beautiful cat). Unfortunately, rabbits offered as prizes in ring toss games are generally unvaccinated and are often infected with a variety of viruses, bacteria, and parasites. The rabbit started acting lethargic a few days later and was rushed to the vet. Turns out there were parasites and signs of other infections. My wife did everything she could to take care of the bunny, but the day after the trip to the vet, I found myself digging a rabbit-sized grave near the ancient trees on the backside of the village pond. 
This led to some small arguments. At first, the concept of a cat appealed to my wife, but in its final days, the rabbit kept following her around and nuzzling her feet. She wanted another rabbit. I did my best to explain that although a rabbit might be affectionate, a cat would have far more personality to interact with. Generally, this is the sort of war I end up losing (I kept expecting to hear “Surprise! Here’s the new rabbit!”), but then my daughter intervened and firmly joined the cat side of the battle. 
So, back to Pet Street we went. Although a kitten would be preferable, the cat I’d seen at the market was truly a prince among felines. There was only one small issue. The shop owner said he wanted 5000 RMB (over $750) for the cat. 
This was because he was supposed to be a special imported breed. Subsequently, I’ve checked the “Cat Breed ID” charts at several shops, and it’s quite possible that the cat in question is either an American or British Short Hair. One note – to the best of my knowledge, “purebred” cats and dogs in China don’t come with any sort of papers. If it looks sort of like a certain breed, then it costs the same as a purebred just imported from a registered litter overseas.
Having learned from painful experience that I sometimes get “special” pricing due to the automatic assumption that all foreigners are rich, I took my daughter to the pet market. She hadn’t been with me on any of the previous occasions, so there wasn’t much chance of the seller knowing that she was checking to see if there was a different price for a Chinese purchaser. I’ve never been so sad to find out I was getting the same price as everyone else. Not only was the cat I liked 5000 RMB, but there was a large (actually, FREAKING HUGE) cat in the next cage that had a price of 38,000 RMB (makes me wonder if the guy was selling them by weight).
My wife did some checking around and found a cat breeder who had several litters nearly ready to sell. I wasn’t sure what to expect. A pet supply store with cat breeding in back? A warehouse full of cats and kittens? Something else? It was something else. Inside an ordinary apartment, there were over 1 dozen large cages containing a surprising variety of cats. What was a little surprising was that common grey kittens with white feet and several other common looking types of kittens were anywhere from 3000 to 5000 RMB. Evidently, when I lived in the US and had some mixed cats, I should have been breeding them and selling the kittens in China for a huge profit.
They did have something that looked sort of like a silver and black American short hair, but the markings were blurry and faded out towards the cat’s head. Evidently, this was something called a fade, and was also quite popular. Personally, I thought they looked like white cats which had stripes printed on and the ink was running.
We didn’t even have a cage yet (except the rabbit cage), and I had a trip coming up. The plan was to do more research and to find a kitten after the trip. Then my lovely wife saw an online classified ad (telling what I thought was a suspicious story) and offering a 4000 RMB kitten for 1300 (allegedly including some high-value cat accessories). Allegedly, the cat was a fade (which I really didn’t want).
The short version: (for the long version, please read How NOT to Buy a Cat in China): After dark, my wife and I ended up in a remote corner of Dongguan that appeared to be more construction zone than a place anyone selling a cat would live. Suddenly, the seller popped up out of the shadows. We made our way over to where a dim streetlight would let us get a look at the kitten.
There was nothing faded about him. He looked to be a British or American shorthair crossed with something local and maybe a bit of Bengal. The markings were beautiful, golden grey on top, silver on the sides, with very nice black strips. He’s also got spots underneath. Even better, as I slid my hand inside the carrier (a cat purse) to try to pet this unknown feline (don’t try this at home, unlike most people, I’ve actually had my rabies shots 
), he didn’t scratch or bite – instead, he purred and nuzzled my hand.
Oh wait – I was keeping the kitten acquisition part short. Yes, we got him. Yes, the seller told multiple lies and we spent a not-so-small fortune on vet bills to keep him alive. He’s fine now and in the process of getting all his vaccinations. After some debate, he was named Stripy Emperor (条纹皇帝, Tiáowén Huángdì) and immediately declared everyone in the household to be his servants.
In any event, the rabbit cage was a bit small for him. Here he is on the first evening.
This is NOT an adequate Palace for an Emperor
My prior experience with cats included one incident where they were trying to get access to power tools (they’d gotten the cords and were trying to drag the tools under the door. For years I’ve wondered what would have happened if I’d let those cats have access to the tools. Now I know. Within 2 days, he’d kicked out a side wall and doubled his living space.
Better, But Not Good Enough
Of course, like any true emperor, Stripy Emperor still needed a proper palace. After several nights of very unusual construction sounds, we woke up to find this.
Finally, a Palace Worthy of His Imperial Majesty
Happily, even though Stripy Emperor does like to roam as much of the house as we give him access to, he doesn’t usually seem too distressed to have to spend some time inside his cage palace.
Next up were cat containment problems. First, Stripy Emperor was fascinated by 99 and was determined to get the hamster out of her cage to play. 99 didn’t seem to mind having a thin sheet of plexiglass as the only thing protecting her from becoming a cat snack. Mostly, she ignored Stripy Emperor. Every now and then, she’d stand upright and walk on her hind legs towards the voracious jaws for a closer look. Evidently, humans aren’t the only ones who find bipedal hamsters creepy, since whenever she does this, Stripy Emperor retreats. 
There’s a diagonal tube connecting the 2 cage levels on the back which he’d claw at when 99 ran past. He also developed a habit of sitting on top of the cage, and the cage was not designed to support a cat. Sooner or later, something in the cage would give and then there’d be no more hamster (unless 99 is bright enough to stand upright and chase Stripy Emperor).
So, I designed the first cat deflector. It’s a heavier plexiglass box, open on the front and bottom and cut with air vents. It fits around the hamster tube and water bottles. My lovely wife found an online shop that could do custom plexiglass jobs and managed to translate the concept sufficiently. For only 140 RMB they made it. It’s also strong enough that Stripy Emperor can sit on top. As long as he doesn’t figure out how to open the cage doors in front, 99 should be perfectly safe. Happily, my career in cat deflector design is off to a very good start.
As the weather warmed up, a second problem occurred. We already were doing a fairly good job keeping Stripy Emperor off the balcony and out of the stairwell, but the double bars in the main living room and dining room windows are enough to discourage burglars, but not enough to stop a cat. In the end, 3 large pieces of heavy welded wire mesh were acquired (30 RMB each). The openings are just over 6 cm, which is small enough to prevent Stripy Emperor from slipping through. I took the first panel onto the neighbor’s roof, test fitted it to one of our windows, then used a cutting disk to trim it enough to make it fit. Then I had to lean over the gap between the houses and hold it against the outer bars while my lovely wife used some wire to tie it on. Once it was reasonably secure, I joined in the wire tie party until it couldn’t move at all. When the window is open, Stripy Emperor now enjoys sitting between the inner and outer bars.
Stripy Emperor and his Cat Deflector
The second window was harder to access. I dropped some cables from a 3rd floor window, tied them to the second panel (since I now knew the size, this one was precut), and gently swung it close to the second window. With a modest amount of yelling and screaming, I managed to reel in enough cable to get it mostly lined up with the window and we proceeded to use wire ties to secure it, thus giving our growing ball of fur another place to sit without worrying about him visiting the neighbor’s roof or falling between the buildings.
I’ve got one panel left in case I find a need to add more cat deflectors.
As if my budget wasn’t already wrecked, the air conditioner in the 2nd floor living/dining room area is old and inefficient. With summer coming, my lovely wife decreed decided that a new air conditioner was a good idea – to keep the cat from overheating.
Stripy Emperor Enjoying His New AC
