PEOPLE Pets | Sit. Stay. Play!

Sometimes I feel like a horrible person because my cats can't climb trees, chase birds or run freely through tall grass. I'm sad that they've lived a cumulative 10 or so years of their lives behind closed doors -- they've never scaled a leafy branch, never proudly laid a bird or rodent at my feet after a hunt. But such is the life of a city cat that can't go outside for fear of everything under the sun, namely speeding cars.

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Does your cat hop into your suitcase before you leave for a trip? It's like they're saying "Take me! Take me!" as they tuck their furry tails beneath your shirts. So, it's about time somebody made luggage that's actually meant for packing purr or pooch — without actually leaving home.

Erika Tugas takes vintage suitcases and fashions them into cozy but quirky pet beds. "I find the suitcases at flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores, and Craigslist," Tugas tells PEOPLEPets.com. With a little elbow grease, she cleans them up, fits them with custom pillows, adds some paint and attaches legs that she salvages from old furniture or buys from craft or hardware stores.

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Slurping water, splattering food -- they come with the territory when you own a pet. Add two, three or even four critters to your brood and you've got yourself a date with the mop and bucket on a regular basis. But there's a polite and pretty way to break that date, thanks to placemats by Sean Camargo.

The dad of four dogs makes machine-washable, bone-shaped placemats in a wide array of colors and lively patterns to fit the tastes of any pet lover. "I have four dogs so there's just constant mess with water and food everywhere," Camargo tells PEOPLEpets.com. "So I started making [placemats] and they became popular with friends."

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There's no shortage of fun pet feeders and accessories on the market. But now that Crate & Barrel has tossed its hat (er, bone?) into the ring, the industry just got a whole lot cuter. Today the contemporary-housewares mecca launches a colorful pet gear line, which includes toys, beds, collars, leashes and more — all under $70.

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Once upon a time, Debbie Wiener understood why people shooed their pets off the upholstery. She, too, cared more about how her home looked than how it functioned.

But she found herself cleaning endlessly because she lived in a house full of slobs — a husband, two sons and a "chubby, large-scale Yorkie" named Daisy, who vomited often. "I would return home with dread," Wiener tells PEOPLEPets.com of facing the mess.

So Wiener, an interior designer from Silver Spring, Md., decided that slob-friendly furniture was what her home needed. She recently launched a line of upholstered furniture, Slobproof, made with Crypton mess-repelling fabric.

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It is believed that it took Leonardo Da Vinci more than 15 years to complete the Mona Lisa. He labored over it and finally completed it just a few years before he died in 1519. Like Da Vinci, animal portrait artist John Golden knows a thing or two about getting a masterpiece just right.

Golden has spent his time perfecting his digital folk-art style of painting animals — a warm mix of color, visible brush strokes, and layered images printed on textured archival paper — with a winning outcome (more than 6,000 sales on Etsy!) .

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Who says summer can't feel cozy? When we spotted these bright pillows, we knew both humans and furry friends would want to snuggle with them.

Graphic designer Colleen Johnson of Freshline Illustration and Design has taken some of our favorite creatures -- deer, birds, seahorses -- and created bright 8-inch x 8-inch pillows with lively and whimsical nature prints that give a nod to both '50s vintage and Danish mod fabrics. Each one is handsewn, including her best-seller (and our favorite!), the "Welcome to our nest pillow," complete with adorable bird and, yes, a nest made of loose squiggles.

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