They say you can never have too much of a good thing. That might be true, but sometimes – just sometimes – you might need a little break from it.
Rebecca May and her husband, Alex, are the proud pet parents of a very loving and affectionate cat.
10-year-old Ziggy adores her mommy and daddy and wants to spend as much time with them as possible. She's constantly cuddling up to them and loves resting in their laps.
While having a cuddly and loving cat sounds like every cat lover's dream, Rebecca and Alex have discovered that there's a downside to receiving too much love and attention: it makes it hard to get any work done.
While having a cuddly and loving cat sounds like every cat lovers dream, Rebecca and Alex have discovered that there is a downside to receiving too much love and attention; it makes it difficult to get any work done
When both Rebecca and Alex started working from home, Ziggy grew increasingly clingy and her constant need for attention proved to be quite challenging
Ziggy is desperate to be close to her best friends at all times and if she’s not cuddled up in someone’s lap it’s most likely because she’s already positioned herself on their back, shoulders or arms instead.
Rebecca found that Ziggy would just not leave her alone with her work; the clingy kitty would even sprawl out on top of her laptop in order to catch her attention
Rebecca and Alex both love snuggling with their little furbaby, but they knew they had to come up with a plan that would allow them to focus on their work while still leaving Ziggy happy.
And, after some trial and error, they came up with a plan that would leave all three of them satisfied.
In order to get a break from Ziggy’s smothering displays of love, Rebecca initially tried placing a cat bed on her desk, so that Ziggy could lie down on the bed instead of on top of her laptop.
But Ziggy was not overly impressed with the cat bed.
Sure, it was fairly comfortable, but it severely lacked the soothing effect of a nice, warm lap and it didn’t provide the pleasant heat of a laptop keyboard.
Rebecca and Alex soon realised that they had to come up with a better plan if they wanted to properly satisfy their clingy kitty
And after some serious thinking, Alex finally came up with the perfect plan.
Since Ziggy is so fond of cuddling up on their laps, the pair decided that they would try building Ziggy her very own “lap”
That is, they set out to create a cat bed shaped like a human lap.
Alex stuffed a pair of pants to make them look like legs, and even added a pair of shoes to the bottom to make the illusion complete.
Up top, he stuffed the pants with a pillow to serve as the “belly” and then, to make the bed extra tempting, he placed a heating pad inside the fake lap.
Now, the seat not only looked like a pair of legs, but it also offered an illusion of body heat
It was as close to the real thing it could get, but Alex still wasn’t quite sure his idea would work.
In the back of his mind, he assumed it would just be a funny project with no real result.
But Ziggy adored it.
The fake lap proved to be everything the kitty could wish for – except for a real lap, of course.
Rebecca told The Dodo that their other cat, Harley, was completely indifferent to the invention, but Ziggy loved it.
She theorized that the lap made Ziggy feel “warm and protected.”
The couple are not planning on keeping the fake lap up all the time, but they see it as a perfect tool to use when they have a busy day of work and need some time and space to themselves
It ensures that Ziggy is kept comfortable and happy until his parents can offer him a real lap to rest on.
Because of course, when they’re not busy, Alex and Rebecca are more than thrilled to spend some quality time with their impossibly sweet kitty.
After all, there’s nothing more soothing than to snuggle up with a loving little cat after a long day of work.