Did you know that cats have two homes?

Cats have a 1st order home and a 2nd order home. What is that again? You'll probably ask yourself that question, but you're not alone. Not all cat owners and even less the people who want to be cat owners, know that. Cats have a home and a striping area. This applies to both freedowners and pure apartment cats. In the flat these areas are referred to as Heim 1. Ordnung and Heim 2. Ordnung.

So far, so good, but that's not all said: The two homes are enormously important for cats and if the Human being in there, he is probably annoyed about homelessness and scratch marks.

Man plunges into the house order, is protested

So beware! In the home of the first order are usually the feeding and sleeping place as well as maternal animals and the breeding place for their young. The 2nd-order home is everything else, so to speak: resting place, hiding place, play area, exploration ground, observation post etc. Cats want to have access to both homes at all times and therefore they hate closed room doors. However, man frequently commits precisely this error out of ignorance: he concludes, for example, the door to the bedroom or the nursery. What happens then? Quite simple: the cat protests neatly at this door peeing and scratching.

Size: The cat needs space for two homes

Now you know a big cat secret and can imagine that a cat needs space to house their homes in the apartment. In a two-room apartment with a cat that works. For several animals, the apartment should be larger, because: Each animal has two own homes and that the homes of different animals overlap, of cats - if you're lucky - only gritting his teeth. Otherwise there is Zoff and - what else - Schubenpinkelei. Text/Photo: Marion Friedl