There is a new kitten out in Blogdom, I understand. This post is for her/him and all the others out there. These four items work for me, but you know how cats are; past performance is no guarantee of future performance.
- Guests to my house don’t know I have cats for two reasons; one, the cats hide until they leave, but most important, they can’t smell the litter box. At least that’s what they tell me. This is probably because I layer newspaper quite thickly at the bottom of the litter box, then pour Fresh Start (though others might work) on top of that. Important here: I do not use clumping litter because it creates little fragrance balls even cooking cabbage can’t mask. With my method, the urine soaks the newspapers which is covered by the nicely scented litter and holds that ammonia scent in. (Thanks to Abbe for this tip.)
- Does your furniture look like shredded wheat? Mine does. Four new leather chairs now feel like dotted Swiss under your fingers. Obviously I learned the following trick too late, but will continue to avoid further damage. Seeing my furniture still covered with quilts and sheets from the night a wise lady asked if I had tried foil. Foil? She said cats hate it, the sound scares them. You can bet I picked up a cheap role and spread it across one chair that night—and subsequent nights for a week. Result: no new scratches although the chair is mostly exposed. In fact, the minute she hears the foil going on, Emma (the culprit) runs from the room. This is only one week’s trial but I am ceasing my research (as they say) because the results appear so promising. I’ll begin to scatter foil on all four chairs at night.
- How embarrassing it was to leave for my super garbage guys a garbage can so smelly I hated to lift the lid to add to it. I am here to tell you the problem is solved. I no longer drop kitty litter bags into the big can, but in a small can beside it. No, it doesn’t smell up the whole garage because of my secret weapon—Glad Bags new odor shield plastic bags. I just plop the dirty bags into that (no cover) and once a week close it up and put in the big can. This would work for dog poop, too. (For the government police dogs out there: I have received no compensation from Glad Bag or, as a matter of fact, Fresh Start. They don’t know I exist.)
- Now this is the most important point. If you remember nothing else, remember this. When you cat is meowing or caterwauling or whatever he does and he doesn’t respond to food or clean litter, you can be pretty sure what he really wants is YOU. Put him in your lap or lie beside him on the floor and stroke him and talk to him. I must credit blogger OmbudsBen for this revelation. When I read a post from him a while back a light came on. He may have been talking about his dog. I really don’t remember, but since then I hear his advice every time chirps and Charo sounds come from my kitties. (They don’t meow.) Attention soothes them every time.
Just don’t look to me for advice when your cat falls in love with a sto
ne frog.
A N H I N G A 
I learned the foil trick too late, too. I now have my four dining chairs that have to be reupholstered. Not fun. It happened when I was gone to Australia. She didn’t like me being gone.
I put foil on all the chairs now and the cats start running when they hear it. If only I had known!
I don’t know which blogger you wrote this for, but I found it tremendously helpful! We got Maya the first week of November, and the furniture has been suffering. Also going to implement the newspaper trick next time we change the litter.
Stoned frog pictures/quip was adorable.
This is so cute. So is the frog by the way, I want one. LoL
Thanks for the callout, A. It quite surprised me when I read it!
There’s a chance I might have been talking about our dear old girl, Millicent, who left this scene three years ago. But it is more likely I was talking about our pups.
I’m constantly fascinated by inter-species communication with them. They try as bet they can to comunicate with us. But so long as they are speech-impaired and we are olfactory-impaired, there are going to be shortfalls. I’d bet if we ever could fully understand cross species, there might be lots of comic elements.
I wrote a long email to a friend today, in response to a newspaper article about party disasters involving pets.
Let me know if you’d like to see it, and I’ll add it to the comments here.
I definitely would enjoy your response on party disasters involving pets. I may be able to add to it tomorrow if my son brings his Bichon Frise to Thanksgiving dinner. My cats are not even too happy with human guests, and there have been comic incidents with huge, barking kind. Let’s hope they are under the bed.
I’ve just tried the foil trick on Tabbie’s Gracie Mae. Unfortunately Grace loves the foil. 😛 I bet she’d love the frog too! 😀
Darn! Guess it doesn’t work on them all, but so far it has on my Emma, and she is a tough case.
A friend sent me the following link, a story about pet disasters during parties
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pets/index
I replied to her re the blog post, then got a bit carried away:
another of those ‘happy it hasn’t happened to me’ moments. Our two pup-dogs will be happy to serve as greeters as our guests come over tomorrow. I think it’s one of the quintessential difference-between-the-species moments. People come in the door and are eager to say their hellos, begin the festivities, etc. The dogs get a head pat, maybe a few pets, but then are supposed to retreat to the edges.
But for our dogs it’s a very different moment. All day long it’s often the same-old same-old, with the obvious and regular indulgences from the humans–but there’s lots of “downtime” on a bed. And then guests arrive–a new chance to relate to someone! To form new bonds! To find a playmate!
Both of ours will bring toys out to people, ever hopeful. I often notice that they dig out chewtoys bring them to our feet and begin gnawing industriously–I think it’s a way of showing off and a way to burn energy (“see what I can do!”). I feel a titch bad for them, sometimes. I try to get people to engage with them a bit, just at first, but of course that doesn’t always compute.
Have a happy Thanksgiving, I’ll see you next week,
B