Cat mat construction

So, the flight to Germany is about 8 hours long. The cats have to get to the airport 3-4 hours ahead of time, so they'll be in their carriers a dozen hours at the very least. When they came over from Hawaii (about 8 hours in their carriers), they were covered with pee and other things. So, I decided to construct an absorbent pad for each carrier. I looked at puppy training pads, but most of them have puppy attractants, and I was afraid that something that would attract a puppy would scare a cat. But, I bought the one kind I could find that didn't say it had them. I tried them out on a trip to the vet, and they worked nicely, but they didn't seem like they would hold much. So, I constructed something of my own. I used the puppy pads that I had already bought, along with some Poise Pads. Here's how I did it, I'll let you know in a few days how well it worked.

This is the kind of puppy pads I used -

I folded the puppy pads in half to make a base. I used double-sided tape to stick them together.

I used the overnight super absorbency Poise Pads. They have elastic on the sides to help them conform to the body, but I didn't want the little ridges on my mats, so I cut off one side of each elastic.

I laid down the Poise pads across the mat. The slight curve of the pads is a great addition, because it makes them go up the side a bit. I overlapped them so that the side of each pad that still had the elastic was on the bottom, and the elastic-less side was on the top.

I used an additional pad that I cut up to fill in a few spaces between the other pads. You can see an example in the middle.

I wanted the mat to be smoother, so the cats weren't quite as tempted to rip at them. So, I then took another puppy pad and ripped the top layer off. The bottom is plasticized, so I didn't want that as a barrier between the cats and the Poise pads. It's pretty easy to take the top off.

I placed the top of the puppy pad on top of the rest of the mat and taped it on around the sides.

I then put lots of double-sided tape on the inside of the carriers, and stuck the mats in. Viola!