Japan now has a special desk for people who work at home with a pet cat[Photos]

The Neko House Desk understands who’s really in charge of your home, and helps you convince them to let you have some space too.

SoraNews24 -Japan News-
I can foresee a design flaw, which is that the cat will ignore all the specially designated areas and sit on your keyboard instead.

Past experience with cat-wrangling over the years have taught me one thing (amongst many): It doesn't matter what the object is, if human cares about it, cat will use said object as a cat would, in order to communicate with human.

Communications from cat tend to be along the lines of: I'm hungry, or in most cases, I want attention (play/stimulation).

Past objects observed: Keyboards, houseplants, pens & pencils, kitchen area counter and anything on it, pet ants, rock and fossil collection.. the list goes on.

And related to cat areas, the secret that I've found was to never rely on buying fancy cat furniture but rather making a unique spot for cat every few days. Blanket for comfort, areas always in sight range of the work desk but not in it (to be distracting for work). Bonus points if you visit and pet cat when they're sleeping in those spots to reinforce that this is their spot and all is well with safety and comfort.

And same for toys, makeshift toys are cheaper and more effective than overpriced pet store shenanigans (Eg: elastics, pieces of string tied together, sandwich bag clips, small bouncy toys). The secret there is also reinforcing playtime with those toys by simply playing with cat!

Edit: written with cat at arm's length distance in makeshift bed in a chair~

Yeah after investing in countless cat toys from the pet store, I found out that my cat's favorites are (in no particular order):

- McDonald's paper straw

- Bird feather from outside

- Empty toilet paper roll

- Shoelace

- Strap of Velcro

- Bottle cap

I think variety is the key, and we've had really good outcomes by having a few pet shop toys (feather on wand, squeaky mouse, ball with bell) that we bring out for a few hours every few weeks and then put away, so it doesn't turn into something normal for them to ignore.