Biscuit is nine, about fourteen pounds, and he has stopped being in a hurry. Over the summer I started noticing him stand at the foot of our bed and think about it. Not crying, not limping, just doing the arithmetic on a jump he used to make without noticing. At his checkup our vet said he was a little stiff for his age, nothing diagnosed, and that making the climb easier was a reasonable thing to do. She is not the one who has to find furniture that fits a farmhouse bedroom, so that part was mine.
In August I ordered the Aechonow 3-in-1 Pet Stairs with cat condo. It is three levels, a shade under nineteen inches at the top, with a cave underneath and scratching posts on the sides. It sits against the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, which puts the top step level with the lid, and Biscuit walks up the steps, crosses the chest and steps onto the quilt. He has done it every night since. Here is what I checked before I ordered and what I have watched since, in the order I would tell a friend.
The set of stairs that turned a nightly hesitation into a walk
Three levels, a cave underneath, and a base that stays put on an old wood floor. This is the one at the foot of our bed.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →The step rise suits a cat who thinks about the jump first
The listing puts the scratching posts at 6 to 7 inches and says outright that they suit old cats or chunky cats going up and down. That is the number I cared about. Biscuit is about fourteen pounds now and he does not clear things the way he did at five. A rise in that range means he steps rather than launches. I am not a vet and I am not making a claim about his joints. I am saying he uses the steps without the pause he was doing in July.
Three levels is enough and not too much
The listing says three levels and that is what came. Three is a good number for a bedroom. Two would not get him high enough to be worth it and five would turn the foot of the bed into a climbing structure that June would launch off at two in the morning. Somewhere around the third step a cat stops climbing and starts walking, and walking is what I wanted. He goes up in one steady line now, nose level, no scrambling.
It tops out just under nineteen inches, which matched our bed
The Aechonow dimensions are 19.3 by 11.8 by 18.9 inches, so the top sits a shade under nineteen inches off the floor. Our bed is a tall old four poster and the cedar chest at the foot of it lands right at that height. Stairs against the chest, up the steps, across the lid, onto the quilt. No jump at either end. If your bed is much taller than that, measure first, because this does not reach a high bed and it is not meant to.
The baseplate is wide, so it stays where I put it
The baseplate is listed at 19.2 by 11.8 inches and the whole unit weighs about eleven pounds. That combination matters on an old wood floor, which is what we have upstairs. A narrow base on a light piece slides when a cat pushes off it. Ours has not walked across the floor once in three months, and June has hit it at speed more than once. Everything rests on that plate. Nothing is cantilevered out over the edge waiting to tip.
The cave gives a nervous cat somewhere to be that is not under the bed
The cat cave is listed at 12.9 by 10.8 inches, tucked in under the steps. June claimed it in the first week. She is three, about eight pounds, and she treats it as a den. That was not the reason I bought the piece and it has turned out to be half of what it does in this house. If you have one cat who will not use a stair and one who will, this is the part the second cat uses.
He does not stand at the foot of the bed doing the arithmetic anymore. He just walks up. That is the whole thing I wanted.
The scratching posts earn the floor space
The listing names climbing, jumping, running and scratching as uses, and there are scratching posts built into the sides. Cat furniture takes up floor whether or not anybody touches it, and I have moved enough of it to be fussy about that. A set of stairs that also gets scratched gets used twice a day instead of once. June works the posts on her way past. Biscuit stretches on them in the morning, same as he does with every post in the house.
Nothing to drill, nothing to find a stud for
This is a floor mount. It sits. There is no bracket, no wall anchor, and no reason to get the level out and argue about studs. In an old farmhouse that is worth more than it sounds, because the plaster walls in the front of our house will not hold anything without a fight. I set the stairs down, checked that the base was flat on the floor, and that was the entire installation. The instruction manual was in the box and I read it once.
I can move it with one hand to vacuum
About eleven pounds, roughly five kilos. I pick it up by the side, set it on the rug when the vacuum comes through, and put it back. That sounds small. It is not small. Anything that stays put but cannot be moved is a thing I stop cleaning around, and a bedroom with two cats in it needs the vacuum to reach the corners. It has been lifted and set back down twice a week since August and nothing has loosened.
The listing carries a two year manufacturer warranty
Two years from the manufacturer, per the Aechonow listing, which is longer than I expected on a piece of cat furniture. I have not had to use it and I hope I never do. What it tells me is that the maker expects the thing to hold together through a couple of years of a fourteen pound cat going up and down it every night. That is the kind of line I read for now, at fifty seven, more carefully than I used to.
Both cats use it, and they are six years apart
Biscuit is nine and takes the steps every night to get to the bed. June is three and lives in the cave. The listing names all breed sizes, and in practice the steps suit the bigger cat while the cave suits the smaller one. Two cats, one piece of furniture, no arguing over it, which in this house is close to a record. I would not tell you it works for every cat. I will tell you it works for both of ours, for different reasons, and I did not expect that when I ordered it.
What I'd Skip
Here is what this does not do. It does not make a cat use stairs. If your cat will not put a paw on it, no arrangement of it will change that, and I would not buy it expecting otherwise. It does not replace your vet. Ours is the one who said a little stiffness at nine was worth working around, and she is the one to ask about your cat, not a teacher with a farmhouse and a notebook. And it does not give a climber anything. June still wants the highest thing in the den and this is not that. It is a way onto a bed. That is the whole job, and in our house it does the job.
If your cat has started doing the arithmetic at the foot of the bed
Three levels, a cave underneath, a wide baseplate, and no drilling. Ours is against the cedar chest and it has not moved since August.
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