Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This heated kitty pad makes a great addition to a winter shelter for outdoor cats. I believe in keeping cats indoors, but if you love cats, you may find yourself dealing with someone else's outdoor cat, or maybe even ferals. I looked at a similar product at PetsMart but it was marked for indoor use only. The heating element of this kitty "pad" is inside an air-tight black casing that feels like thick plastic. The cord is 5 1/2 feet long, insulated and covered with a steel coil so that you don't have to worry about a critter chewing through it. The pad is big enough for one cat and luckily, it fit perfectly inside of the small igloo I set up on my back deck. The instructions say do not immerse in water, so the pad shouldn't be used in an open area, though I think it would do ok on a covered deck that stayed dry most of the time...and it makes sense to try to provide shelter against the elements for the cat's sake, anyway, so if you're providing a good, dry shelter for the cat, then the pad should be ok, too. I placed my igloo under a patio table, which I then covered with a waterproof tarp (using patio chairs covered in shower curtain liners as entryways), so the pad isn't exposed to any moisture at all. The kitty has used the igloo and the heating pad many days this winter - well worth the investment. By the way, if you order directly through the manufacturer's catalog, they make the heating pads in semi-circles specially sized to fit igloos...but this small cat pad fit in my igloo just fine.