Anyone who gets a pet quickly realises how expensive the extras are. A cat tree easily runs to a hundred francs or more new, then there's the transport box, the enclosure, maybe an aquarium — it all adds up before the animal has even moved in.
The funny thing is, a lot of it is sitting around somewhere in Switzerland waiting to be given away. Because the cat never touched the scratching post. Because the dog outgrew the puppy crate. Because someone's moving and can't take the terrarium, or because a pet has died and the gear in the basement only hurts to look at now.
What gets given away for pets
Pet gear shows up regularly on the Pikitup map. The most common:
- Scratching posts and cat trees — often barely used, because the cat prefers the sofa.
- Transport boxes and dog crates — puppy crates especially, once the dog has grown.
- Aquariums and terrariums — bulky and hard to dispose of, so often given away.
- Cages and enclosures for rodents, birds or rabbits.
- Bowls, feeding stations, hay racks, blankets and beds.
- Leashes, harnesses and collars from animals that have outgrown them.
Not every day, and not all at once. But if you don't need everything today, it's worth checking the map regularly — in Zurich just as much as in smaller towns.
Why secondhand makes extra sense for pet gear
Pet supplies are a textbook example of things bought new and barely used. The cat tree the cat ignores. The playpen that's too small after three months. The second bed the dog never looked at.
On top of that, the big pieces are expensive new and a hassle to get rid of. A retired cat tree won't fit in a rubbish bag, and you can't just drop an aquarium at the collection point. Exactly the kind of thing people would rather give away than throw out — good for whoever needs it, good for whoever's clearing it out.
And there's the environmental side. A second life for a cat tree beats a new one made of chipboard and plush that ends up in the bin a year later.
What to check on used pet gear
A few things matter more with pet stuff than with a bookshelf:
- Clean it before your animal goes near it. Wash out boxes, bowls and cages thoroughly, and wash textiles hot if you can — mainly in case the previous animal was ill.
- Look for damage. Chewed cables on an aquarium lid, frayed straps on a harness, rusty cage bars — leave those.
- Some things you just don't take secondhand: opened food, badly worn harnesses with frayed straps, or wobbly cat trees. Anything that affects the animal's safety, look twice.
The rest — beds, trees, boxes, enclosures — is usually completely fine once it's clean.
Give it away instead of binning it
If you're on the other side of this — the pet has moved out, died, or the puppy-gate phase is over — don't throw the gear out. Someone nearby may be looking for exactly that.
A photo, a few words, the location: that's all it takes to give something away. You don't have to haul it to the dump, and for someone else it's just right.
Pets are more than their gear
One last thing that has nothing to do with the map but belongs to the topic. The best box and the most expensive cat tree are worth nothing if the animal doesn't come home one day.
Two things genuinely help and cost little: a microchip with up-to-date registration and an ID tag on the collar. Both sound trivial, but in an emergency they decide whether a found animal makes it back to you.
And if a cat or dog really does go missing, the first hours count. Search the neighbourhood, put food out, check the spots where animals hide — and get word to as many people nearby as fast as possible. There's now a Swiss search service that puts your missing-pet alert in front of thousands of neighbours right around the spot where it was last seen. The ads go live within the hour, exactly where the animal was last seen, and you can stop them the moment it's back.
Hopefully you'll never need it. But it doesn't hurt to know it exists before you do.