You will learn to judge a cat tree on its stability, its platforms and its place in the room, before judging it on its looks.
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A cat tree is expensive, takes up a square metre of floor and sometimes ends up unused in a corner. What went wrong is nearly always structural.
A cat landing from a jump is not a gentle load: it is a short sideways force applied at the top of the structure, where the leverage is greatest. If the whole thing sways once, the information is filed and it does not get revised.
The check is one movement: push the top with a flat hand, without force. What you feel is not the equal of a landing, but it announces it.
What holds: a wide heavy base, or a wall fixing. Both can be added afterwards, and a bracket costs less than a second tree.
Many trees stack saucers sized for a kitten. An adult fits sitting, never lying down, and it is not going to sleep balanced on an edge.
Take the measurement at home, on a curled-up cat: the platform should hold all of it, four paws on, with no elbow hanging over the drop.
One large platform beats four small ones. That is also what separates a tree used for resting from a tree used as a staircase.
A high point is of no interest in itself. It becomes interesting when it gives a view of a window, of the front door, or of the whole room: what is wanted is the lookout, not the altitude.
That is why a neglected tree can become useful again two metres to the left, and why a taller model changes nothing if it still faces the same wall.
A cat stretches its full length as it leans in, and that stretch is part of what it came for. A shorter post keeps it hunched, and the arm of the sofa goes back to being the best option in the room.
Take the measurement against a wall: note the highest point the front paws reach when it stretches up, and compare that with the post before you buy.
Glued carpet pills, forms loops and catches a claw at the wrong moment. Sisal rope wears visibly but keeps its grip to the end.
The real question is elsewhere: can the post be re-wrapped when it is finished? A repairable tree lasts years; a one-piece tree gets thrown away whole because of one worn post.
A tree planted in a thoroughfare, backed against a wall, with nothing to watch, will stay a bulky object whatever the box promised.
Before buying, look at where the animal already sleeps off the ground: a shelf, the top of a wardrobe, a window ledge. The spot has already been chosen, all that is left is to furnish it.