Karlie's Cat Empire

On a recent trip to Petco to get yet more Kitten Milk Replacement formula, I saw a brand of cat furniture from Germany that really impressed me. It's called "Karlie's Cat Empire" and has configurations named for various Egyptian cities. The local Petco had "Alexandria" (which I bought) and a smaller set (I forget the name).

Here's a picture of Karlie's Cat Empire Alexandria:

This cat furniture has the full power of German engineering behind it. It's sturdy, easy to assemble, and it looks as though if you buy several different sets you can mix and match -- a veritable Habitrail for cats!

Here are some of the other configurations:

Unfortunately, Karlie's Cat Empire furniture isn't yet widely available in the US. It's not even listed on Petco's website (except for a single scratching post).

Or maybe that's fortunate (so far as our checking account is concerned!)

As good as Karlie's Cat Empire furniture is, I discovered it had one serious drawback if I intended it for the kittens:

They were dwarfed by it.

But that was okay. I'd really intended the furniture for our adult cats, so it wasn't going to go to waste. I decided to leave it in the kitten room for a while, though. To make it somewhat useful, I draped the "cat dancer" wire toys over it to give the kittens something to play with.

And it wasn't long before the kittens proved that the size of the cat furniture was no obstacle at all!

"Hmm, are there any books about cats on these shelves?"

"Guess not. That 'Wild Tigers' title looks interesting, except for the bit about '& Tame Fleas'! Ooh, what's this over here?"

And what about Black? Actually, she was the first one to conquer the climbing posts.

See how blurry that picture is? That's one reason why there are fewer pictures of the little black kitten than there are of her brother. She moves too fast for the camera to catch her!