<story><title>Coping with Cats</title><url>https://acesounderglass.com/2020/09/02/coping-with-cats/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>grawprog</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s an alright list, but that&amp;#x27;s some beginner level stuff. Where&amp;#x27;s things like&lt;p&gt;-cat is obssessed with plastic bags whenever he wants attention and ends up wearing them like a cape trailing it through the house causing havoc.&lt;p&gt;-cat likes to knock over your breakable things just cause it likes to see them smash&lt;p&gt;-wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises only to find the cat spiderman-ing up the screen on the window because some rats or something were outside&lt;p&gt;-on the note of two in the morning, that&amp;#x27;s of course the cats favourite time to run around the house meowing on the top of his lungs, just because.&lt;p&gt;-if you have a cat and get a puppy, get ready for that puppy to start walking on window sills, the back of the couch, and even up on the coffee table even if it&amp;#x27;s over 50lbs and clumsy as hell, cause the cat does it.&lt;p&gt;-Oh, you were 5 minutes late feeding the cat, well have fun with non stop fucking around for the rest of the day or night&lt;p&gt;-made some steak, fish, chicken, even salad...and turned your back for a second, well that cat&amp;#x27;s gonna be all up in that, as a bonus, maybe he&amp;#x27;ll knock it onto the ground so him and the dogs can feast.&lt;p&gt;But despite all this...and more, still love the furry little bastard.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aahortwwy</author><text>Almost all of these sorts of behavioural issues (with the exception of the food-motivated ones) tend to disappear when you allow your cat the freedom to go outside whenever it wants. They&amp;#x27;re not well suited to confinement and it always shows in their behavior. Sometimes they just get depressed and mopey, which a lot of people interpret as their cat &amp;quot;not minding&amp;quot; its confinement. Other times they try to relieve the soul-crushing boredom of their lives by knocking things over, yelling, or actively messing with you. Sure, you can &amp;quot;train&amp;quot; your cat not to engage in these behaviors (as other commenters note, however, they&amp;#x27;re smart enough to realize you&amp;#x27;re not always watching them) or you could just allow them access to the far more compelling activities that exist outdoors. They&amp;#x27;ll even choose to do mundane stuff (lie in the sun, poop) outdoors nine times out of ten. They just prefer being out.&lt;p&gt;Reading some of the things people in this thread do to their cats made me sad, especially the people talking about techniques for preventing their cats from getting out the front door.[0] If you would never treat a human the way you treat your cat on a regular basis, that should give you pause. If it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;for their own good&amp;quot; you made a selfish choice in pet ownership.&lt;p&gt;[0] An airlock system where the cat is required to sit perfectly still before you open the door? Don&amp;#x27;t they do similar stuff in actual prisons?</text></comment>
<story><title>Coping with Cats</title><url>https://acesounderglass.com/2020/09/02/coping-with-cats/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>grawprog</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s an alright list, but that&amp;#x27;s some beginner level stuff. Where&amp;#x27;s things like&lt;p&gt;-cat is obssessed with plastic bags whenever he wants attention and ends up wearing them like a cape trailing it through the house causing havoc.&lt;p&gt;-cat likes to knock over your breakable things just cause it likes to see them smash&lt;p&gt;-wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises only to find the cat spiderman-ing up the screen on the window because some rats or something were outside&lt;p&gt;-on the note of two in the morning, that&amp;#x27;s of course the cats favourite time to run around the house meowing on the top of his lungs, just because.&lt;p&gt;-if you have a cat and get a puppy, get ready for that puppy to start walking on window sills, the back of the couch, and even up on the coffee table even if it&amp;#x27;s over 50lbs and clumsy as hell, cause the cat does it.&lt;p&gt;-Oh, you were 5 minutes late feeding the cat, well have fun with non stop fucking around for the rest of the day or night&lt;p&gt;-made some steak, fish, chicken, even salad...and turned your back for a second, well that cat&amp;#x27;s gonna be all up in that, as a bonus, maybe he&amp;#x27;ll knock it onto the ground so him and the dogs can feast.&lt;p&gt;But despite all this...and more, still love the furry little bastard.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bloodorange</author><text>Some of your complaints stem from the cat(s) not having learnt what is and is not acceptable. They love to manipulate things with their paws and naturally many will try to swipe&amp;#x2F;push things and sometimes off ledges, shelves etc.&lt;p&gt;You can teach them that that is not acceptable and they will learn. It is even easier to discourage such things from a young age.&lt;p&gt;Also, it&amp;#x27;s good to never give them your food and make them learn that they never get food from you at any time other than their feeding time (barring the occasional treat) and always only in their food bowls.&lt;p&gt;A lot of it is consistency and discipline. I&amp;#x27;ve had multiple cats start the behaviour of swiping&amp;#x2F;pushing things off surfaces but it wasn&amp;#x27;t hard at all to curtail that. While I&amp;#x27;ve raised a non-trivial number of them, I&amp;#x27;ve never had a cat which considered that s&amp;#x2F;he got food when humans are eating.</text></comment>