Now that more cat owners are working from home, a relatable issue has presented itself: clingy cats always wanting to cuddle.
As adorable as this is, it certainly makes work difficult. This led London-based couple, Rebecca and Alex May, to come up with a brilliant solution to this problem: a decoy lap.
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You seriously need to see this!
If you thought only dogs were clingy, you haven’t met Ziggy from London yet.
She’s a cat who is always looking for a snuggle buddy in her owners, Rebecca and Alex May.
When she was first adopted by them three years ago, she was initially shy.
But it didn’t take long for her true personality to shine. Turns out, she’s a total cuddle bug!
“When she bonds with someone it’s just really intense,” Rebecca told [The Dodo]( The Dodo .
“She absolutely has to be sat on you.” While most cats are on the hut for wet food, Ziggy’s on the hunt for a warm lap.
“Her ears go flat and her eyes go black when she thinks you’re about to sit,” May said.
“It’s almost like your lap is a target and she is straight on there whether you’re ready or not.”
Like most pets during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ziggy’s dream came true when her parents started working from home more.
While this seemed like good news for Ziggy, it soon presented a problem: her parents need their laps to work and take calls in peace.
Meanwhile, Ziggy just wanted to climb all over them and hunker down.
“She needs warmth and to feel protected, we think,” May said.
After trying many different solutions, the couple were at their wits end.
Then, Alex came up with a brilliant idea to satisfy Ziggy’s infinity for a lap: make a fake one.
He stuffed a pair of lounge pants to resemble real legs and placed it on the end of their couch.
For an extra sweet touch, he even hid a heating pad in the lap of the pants.
You’ll also see added tennis shoe feet and a pillow stomach.
According to Ziggy’s owners, it didn’t take long for her to fall for the decoy. She found her way there and slept peacefully for four hours!
“He thought that creating a decoy would be funny, but I don’t think he expected it to actually work,” Rebecca said.
“Harley [their other cat] was totally uninterested, but Ziggy loved it.”
The brilliant idea was a hit on Reddit!
“Spectacular. Wholesome. Warms my heart. Please give her an extra smooch tonight, from me,” wrote Reddit catsanddrpepper .
“the heated mat is an amazing touch! she probably likes these legs the best because there’s no annoying hard bones getting in the way,” added another .
So many cat owners couldn’t wait to try it out for themselves.
“That’s the kind of inventive, out-of-the-box thinking that can dramatically increase the happiness of an indoor cat,” wrote Redditor NagevegaN .
Some even recommended that the couple take their invention to Shark Tank !
We’ll have to wait and see where the couple (and Ziggy) goes with that.
But for now, they feel happy knowing that Ziggy is sleeping peacefully away. And the days where they aren’t too busy, their lap is always open.
“I think the trousers a bit too scary to keep up all the time,” May said, “but we’ll definitely put it back out when we have a busy day of calls!”
