The dining room window in our old farmhouse has a deep slot cut along the sill, the kind that used to hold a storm window. For years it held nothing but a draft. In May I hooked a Zakkart windowsill perch into that slot, and the geography of the room changed. Biscuit, our nine year old orange tabby, is up there most mornings before I have my coffee poured.
I am not a cat behaviorist and I am not a vet. I am a middle school science teacher who lives outside Ellijay, Georgia with my husband Ray, and I read every listing and every assembly sheet before I spend money on anything. Ray drills, I level, and between us we have opinions about hardware. What follows is not a promise about what your cat will do. It is what I have watched in our house since May, and the specific reasons a sill perch earns the space it takes up.
The perch that hangs from the sill instead of sticking to the glass
Zakkart's sill perch hooks into a window slot at least half an inch deep. No suction cups, no drilling, no hardware in your trim. Measure the slot first, then check today's price.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →It hangs from the slot your window already has
The listing is unusually specific about the one thing that decides whether this works. Your window needs a slot along the sill at least half an inch deep for the hooks to drop into. I measured ours with a tape before I ordered. If your sill is flat with no slot, this perch will not fit, and I would rather tell you that here than have you find out standing at the window. No suction cups. No drilling. It went up in about two minutes.
Nothing to peel off the glass when the weather turns
Suction cup perches are the ones I hear the most complaining about, and I understand why. Cold glass and a load hanging off a cup is a hard combination. The Zakkart perch puts its weight on the sill instead of clinging to the pane. The frame is hardwood and metal, 3.62 pounds, and ours has not shifted since the day I set it in place in May.
It gives an older cat window height without a climb
June is three and will climb anything that stands still. Biscuit is nine and about 14 pounds, and he has started taking the stairs a little slower this year. He is not going to scale a tower to get a view. The perch is one hop from the dining chair to the sill, and then he is at window height with a soft bed under him. That is the whole reason it gets used every single day here.
The bolsters give them something to lean against
Three sides of the perch are raised. A cat can press their back into a bolster instead of sliding off a flat edge, and Biscuit sleeps wedged into the corner of ours with his chin on the rim. It reads like a small bed set into a window rather than a shelf with a cat on it. June uses it too when he is not there, though she perches on the edge with her front paws draped over the side.
The large size actually fits a large cat
Size L is 24 by 15 inches, and the listing says the perch holds up to 40 pounds. I ordered the large on purpose. Biscuit at 14 pounds stretches the full length of it with room past his nose. If you have a big cat, measure the slot and measure your cat stretched out before you pick a size. The XL is 26.4 by 15, and it wants a wider window than our dining room has.
It sits above the bird feeder
Our dining room window looks out on the feeder in the side yard, which is busy from about seven to nine in the morning. Both cats watch it. June's tail goes the entire time. I am not going to tell you a perch cures a bored cat, because I am not a behaviorist and every cat is different, but in our house the window became the most used piece of cat furniture we own.
The bed comes off and goes in the washer
The cushion lifts out of the frame. The care instructions call for a cold wash and a low tumble, and I have run the cover through twice since May, once after a hairball and once because it needed it anyway. The frame wipes down with a damp cloth. Cat furniture that cannot be cleaned stops being used in this house.
At 3.62 pounds it moves to another window in a minute
This is the part I did not expect to care about. We had family here in July and I wanted the dining room clear of traffic, so I lifted the perch out of the slot and set it into the kitchen window instead. One minute, no tools, nothing to unbolt. It went back to the dining room the next week. That matters if your windows get different light through the year.
It gets a cat off the floor and out of the way
You come in the side door with an armload of groceries and the dining room is the through path. A cat on the floor is a cat underfoot. A cat at window height is out of the traffic and still in the room with you. Both of ours moved off the chair seats and onto the perch within the first week, which made the table a quieter place to sit.
It looks like furniture, not cat equipment
The frame is hardwood with a bolster bed and a slim profile. Our dining room has old wood floors and plaster walls, and I did not want a carpeted tower in the corner of it. This reads as a bench cushion in a window. Ray, who is not sentimental about cat gear, said it looked like it belonged there, which from him is high praise.
What I'd Skip
I would skip any perch held on by suction cups. I have watched them let go in cold weather and I do not want to be in the room when one does. I would also skip ordering this before measuring the slot along your sill, because half an inch of depth is the entire requirement and a tape measure settles it in ten seconds. And honestly, if you have a young, driven climber, June's energy went into the wall shelves in the den, not this perch. This is a window seat, not a climbing system. Biscuit is the one it was bought for and he is the one who uses it. I am not a vet and I am not a behaviorist, so if your cat has stopped jumping or seems stiff, that is a conversation for your own vet, not for a piece of furniture.
Ours has hung in the same window slot since May with no suction cups, no screws, and no wobble.
Measure the slot, then give the window back to the cat
24 by 15 inches, hardwood and metal, cushion machine washable, up to 40 pounds per the listing. Zakkart's perch is in our dining room and it is not coming down.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →