Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Cat Training

So since this baby seems to be in no rush to greet the world I've embarked on a brand new adventure.
I'm training our cat. That would be our kitten, Miss Rosie.
She's a very sweet cat. She loves Doodle to death. In fact she loves us all, and there's nothing more wonderful in her world than being cuddled for hours on end. She also likes to keep our older cat company. She's brought out the youth in Mojo and the two of them chase each other and sleep in the same chair, and do all sorts of fun things.
But ...
Rosie can be very bad.
Much like a two-year-old she understands that the word no means to stop what she is doing, but she just doesn't care. Phat Daddy and I have been getting progessively angrier, and I realized that it's kind of dumb that we expect Doodle to listen to us, but he watches as we helplessly try to discipline the cat and then let her get away with what she was doing.
Bad example.
So, Operation Cat Training kicked into high gear this weekend.
I bought a water spray bottle. It's the best cat training tool ever. Every time I say "no" and Rosie doesn't listen I spray her. And the message is LOUD AND CLEAR.
Doodle is fascinated by this.
He's jumped in on the action. He spends all his time waiting for the cat to be bad to spray her. The thing is, we have the whole say no first and then spray rule. And when Doodle says no the cat listens.
For instance, if I tell her to get off the table she just looks at me and lies down. If Doodle tells her to get off the table she jumps off. And he doesn't get to spray her.
It's quite funny to watch.
But, I'm hoping that eventually the cat will start listening to me. Or else I'll spend the rest of my life wandering the house with a spray bottle making sure my cat stays in line.
On Sunday night as we were yet again spraying the cat, Doodle turned to me and said "Mommy, if my baby is bad do I get to spray her also?"
Ummmm ... we'll have to see.
It could be an interesting household.

7 comments:

SciFi Dad said...

Another thing that my sister used with her dog was a pop can with a few pennies inside (taped shut, obviously).

The sudden loud noise was a good deterrent as well.

Dunno if it'd work for cats.

Multi-tasking Mommy said...

Oh yes, the spray bottle. When I was in Teacher's College, I lived with a girl with a few cats and it's no secret that I'm not a big fan--let's just say I used a spray bottle a time or two--she did too though, so it really was because her cats weren't trained well!
I can just see it now, Doodle spraying the baby oh oh!!!

AndreAnna said...

We used the spray bottle too, but Sci-Fi Dad is right, a can of coins will also piss them off.

Unfortunately, there are many many things that kittens just do, regardless. They do grow out of it though. My older cat Cronie, who is almost 4, could watch the house catch fire and decide he dosn't want to move off the couch.

Anonymous said...

Ah, the spray bottle. It looses it's effect if the cat SEES you spray her. Then it's just associated with you.

Tin foil works wonders as well. We used it on our front door for a while when our cat would scratch to get out (he's an indoor cat)

Jenn said...

The spray bottle didn't work for us, we used the can with pennies to get our kitty to stop chewing computer cords.

citygirl said...

Our cat learned to stop chewing electrical cords when he zapped his upper whiskers (I call them eyebrows) off! He had a bald patch for weeks.

Jenn said...

citygirl: ooooof! poor kitty!