Smokey has a patent on the heavy gravity device. She can double her weight
at will, if she does not want picked up.

Oh no! You can't just discipline Otis and you can't shut him outside
the bedroom. He's King among Stubborn and Determinate Felines.
Cats are nowhere near as trainable as dogs are, since cats do not look
up to us as dogs do. :)

Victor, posting from work.

[[I don't agree you should have submitted.  This is totally unacceptable
behaviour and you were quite right to correct him.  So he didn't like
being
told off - tough!  Neither did you like being dug at with extended claws.
Don't feel bad.  He sounds like he might need a little bit of loving
discipline and relearning a few manners.
You haven't spoilt him at all, have you?  ;-)
If he does this again, I would suggest you immediately pick him up and
shut
him out of the bedroom until morning.  Yes, he will miaow outside the
door,
but it doesn't hurt like claws, and you wouldn't have slept anyway if he
was
clawing you.
I know I don't have a huge lot of experience with cats, but I do have
with

dogs, and this type of behaviour management would definitely work with
them.
I see no reason why it shouldn't work with cats even though they think
differently they are equally intelligent.  If what they do ends up
negatively, without them getting what they want, I'd like to bet they
modify
their behaviour if you do it often enough.]]

Exactly. I had to give Captain and Stanley a "time out" a few days ago
when they decided to try some "tag team" misbehaving. Sometimes there's no
choice but to set a strict limit and make it CLEAR to the cat(s) where the
limit lies.

When DH and I are not home, as well as overnight when we're both asleep,
the cats stay in the basement. It's cat-proofed, there's plenty of room to
play, and they have food, water, litterboxes, beds, and toys there. This
is how we ensure that while we're not supervising them, they're neither
getting into something that could hurt them, playing with things that they
could break, or going into off-limits places like the dining room/kitchen
tables or chairs.

One other thing they can't do while in the basement is SCRATCH anything of
importance, like furniture. They both know by now that any scratching of
the living room furniture WILL get them reprimanded. So they tried a
little experiment a few evenings ago.

I got home from work and let the cats come upstairs. Stanley immediately
started scratching the love seat. I reprimanded him. Captain instantly
scratched at the sofa. I reprimanded HIM. Right away, Stanley started in
on the love seat again.

That did it. I reprimanded Stanley and sent BOTH cats back into the
basement for a time-out. About ten minutes later, I let them come upstairs
again, and they didn't scratch at the furniture for the rest of the
night.

They DO have a carpet-covered kitty tower and I know they're well aware
that they can scratch that freely, since I praise them every time they do
it. But the furniture seems to be one of those "testing the limits" tools
for the cats. They've only been with us for a couple of weeks, so I think
they're still testing just HOW far they can go when they misbehave. It
shouldn't take them long to figure out that the answer is "not far". They
get removed bodily right away from dining room or kitchen tables and
chairs. They even get a "NO" if they are obviously THINKING about jumping
onto off-limits places. To their credit, they usually respond to "no" by
stopping whatever they were doing right away. Whoever had them before we
adopted them obviously taught them what the word NO means.

I'm keeping their front claws trimmed so that, until they've broken the
habit of going for the upholstery, they won't be able to do much damage
anyway. :o) Melody and Harmony (both RB) learned not to scratch furniture,
and I'm confident that these little guys will learn, as well.

But in the meantime, I'm not surprised that there's limit-testing going
on. They're still new in our household and they're young, so it's only
natural for them to still be learning where the boundaries are.

My goal is to ensure that they both learn two things. 1) I'm the alpha cat
in the house, and 2) though they're not at the top of the hierarchy, they
will never lack for anything. Since food, water, and doting are in
infinite supply, it won't trouble them one bit to let someone else be the
alpha cat. So far, they're pretty well-behaved, so I think they're picking
up on those lessons pretty easily.

Donna and the pampered twosome, Captain and Stanley

"Christina Websell" <spamfree@tinawebsell.wanadoo.co.uk> wrote in message

I'm kind of speechless Christina - don't really know where to start :D

Now that we are in our new house, there are times that I put him in the
basement at night if I know I have to sleep.  He yowls (not meows - he's
part siamese) *all night*, even though he's 9 years old.  If the basement
door is closed and my door is closed, two floors up, its only a dull roar.
He will throw himself against the door ad inifitum as well.  When I let him
out in the morning, his voice will be hoarse.  I was too tired to get up and
put him in the basement that night though.  I could *not* put him outside
the bedroom door.  The yowling, throwing his body at the door, and possibly
digging at the door until his paws bled (seriously), would be too much for
me and my children, also trying to sleep.  Otis *never* gives up.  Never
never NEVER. Never.  Never has, never will.  I've tried to outlast him many
times throughout the years.  His piece de resistance involves strolling over
to the middle of the carpeted floor, squatting like a dog and peeing if he
doesn't get his way.

The problem is twofold now.  If he gets too stressed and annoyed - and
stressed and annoyed can mean locked in the basement or away from mommy too
often- he gets a stress related bladder condition and then begins to pee
everywhere because the pee hurts his bladder.

Second, with the kids and particularly with Sam's allergies, the cats don't
get as much of my attention as they'd like.  I can't pet them at random
because I always have to be careful with washing my hands before then
touching Sam.  I also have to be careful about not letting them up on my lap
too much during the day because of the hair on my clothes.  Otis isn't fond
of little people and stays away from me when they are around me.  If he
isn't with me at night to reconnect, he gets a little wild.  Gets stressed
and an irritated bladder, and stays out longer than he should.  Doesnt' come
home when he's called.  He's a one person ridiculously devoted affectionate
cat.

Water spray made Otis mad - he redoubled his efforts at being bad whenever
he was sprayed.  Sticking him in the basement kept all of us up all night in
the old bungalow.  Being locked out of anywhere is simply unacceptable to
him and he won't rest until he's bleeding or out.  Reference here to the cat
spa and his escape from the cat boarders when we went to Ireland.  Also
reference to the day we moved in here and I put the cats in the upstairs
bathroom.  Otis threw himself at the window screen situated over the toilet.
He hung on and the screen fell back and out of the window with his weight.
Lord knows where he landed when he fell, still attached to the screen.  He
then escaped out window and I came home to find the cats circling around the
roof and ready to escape into the new and unfamiliar neighbourhood.

I've said it before, but my TED has said that any other person in his
practice would have had Otis put down from all the property damage and
difficulty that he's put us through.

So now we are on a carefully managed schedule which involves lots of
exercise outside, between certain safer hours near the park here, lots of
attention after the kids go to bed, and lots of hugs and purrs at night.
We're generally at equilibrium; however, if he doesn't get out enough, the
whole thing falls apart.

He's my buddy and I love him!

Susan M
Otis and Chester