Review of Kitty Shack, an As Seen on TV cat bed which promises to provide a comfy bed for your cat while preventing fur from accumulating on furniture.
About Kitty Shack
Kitty Shack is a cat bed which is said to provide a warm place for cats to sleep at night, along with preventing unwanted fur from getting on furniture. It can be zipped up into a “cozy cave” or unzipped to convert to a full sized mat. The product comes in two colors: brown and leopard.
The official product website is buykittyshack.com, which was registered in December 2014.
How Much Does Kitty Shack Cost?
Kitty Shack is advertised at a price of $14.95 plus $6.95 shipping. A second “free” unit is also included for an additional $4.95, bringing your total cost to $26.85. The $11.90 in shipping is non-refundable. It is only sold in sets of the same color, meaning you cannot purchase a brown and leopard one together, unless you buy two sets for a total of four mats.
It appears that Kitty Shack is starting to arrive in stores for about $20. This would be the preferred method of purchase, as you can avoid shipping costs and delays.
Kitty Shack Reviews
Kitty Shack is advertised as a 2-1 design which can work as a mat and a cat “cave.” It is also said to prevent unwanted fur from getting on furniture. This, however, makes the assumption that your pet will prefer this bed over other places in the home. Any cat owner knows that to generalize a cat’s behavior is oversimplifying a rather complex creature.
This is my July 15 update to my preliminary evaluation from April of this year, now that I have had a chance to properly evaluate the product. My first concern with any As Seen on TV product is whether or not it will be cheaply made or function as advertised. In the case of Kitty Shack, I wanted to see if it was made well enough and if the zipper worked. It seems to be made of acceptable quality, and I had no problems with the zipper holding up. Zippers seem to be a problem with some of the more cheaply-made As Seen on TV products, but that is not the case here.
The big test is if cats actually like the product, and this will likely vary from cat to cat. My guess is that for this reason reviews will run the gamut about Kitty Shack. Other As Seen on TV cat products in the past, such as Cat’s Meow, have tended to receive mixed results depending on how consumers’ cats reacted to it.
In my case, two cats reacted differently to it: one preferred it as a mat, and the other paid no attention at all. A small dog, however, seemed to enjoy it more than either cat.
As of this writing, the only other reviews of Kitty Shack I’ve found online are on Amazon, and virtually all of those were supplied free samples. I’ve touched on these “free sample reviews” in my post about finding objective product reviews.
From my experience with As Seen on TV products – particularly new ones – I speculate that early reviews will likely focus negatively on the shipping and ordering process. This is common for new As Seen on TV products, as it often takes several months for a new product to begin shipping in a timely manner. Thus, there are currently a lack of first-hand evaluations. Eventually first-hand reviews will trickle in, and I suspect that the product will get slightly positive reviews in the long run.
Alternate Products
An Amazon search for the phrase “cat bed” yields an astonishing number of results – nearing 100,000. There are hundreds of designs, and some of the products there have extremely high customer satisfaction ratings. Your local pet store should also have a selection of some of the more popular cat beds. It may pay to shop around before making a final decision.
Bottom Line
Kitty Shack is a fairly new As Seen on TV cat bed which has only advertised since early 2015. I found it the construction and performance to be acceptable. It has been my experience that cat products are usually hit and miss because cats can vary so widely in their behavior. There are untold numbers of alternatives on the market, but if you must order this product, keep in mind there is a “buy one get one for additional shipping” offer which you cannot avoid. Look for it in stores, as that will circumvent the high shipping costs.
Your Kitty Shack Reviews
Have you used Kitty Shack? Please give us your Kitty Shack review in the comments below.
Updated July 15, 2015
Originally published April 2015
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