Well, one day last week we were in a hurry to leave the house and I forgot the orangewood stick so when we arrived home and there was no Patches waiting at the door we knew something was up. Sure enough, she had clawed open the screen again. Okay, my bad.
But this week, Patches topped herself. In an effort to prevent her from opening the screen while we slept, Denny and I started closing the windows to the main living area at night. Big mistake.
Notice, if you will, the location of Patches' paw. Magically, it appears to be on the outside of the screen. That is because it IS on the outside of the screen.
Miss Priss was busy one night trying to tunnel through screen and 1/4 inch of solid glass to get at the feral cats who taunt her at night by sitting under her window and staring up at her (I've caught them at it). We have squirted Patches with a squirt gun as she "picks" at the screen with her claws until she's dripping wet, but she simply hunches her shoulders until we're finished spraying her. At that point, she looks over her shoulder with great disdain as if to ask "is that all you've got?", immediately turning around to once again paw at the screen.
That morning I stopped at the dollar store to pick up a cap pistol, hoping that shooting it off while Patches picked at the screen would scare her. Nope, not even a flinch. But then again, today's cap pistols are but pale imitations of the solid cap guns of my childhood in the 50s. So the cap gun goes into the garage sale pile and I have to come up with something else to scare the cat away from the screens.
I'm thinking air horn. Seriously. The heck with the neighbors.
3 comments:
Bad CAT!!! The 'extreme' training I've done with Luna involved an empty plastic milk jug with pennies in it. When she was a pup and wanted to run out the front door, the idea was to throw the jug down next to her (NOT at her) as soon as she started out the door and yell, no stay. It worked and she is very good about NOT going out the door until told.
I have only used it once more. Last week when both Luna and Lobo were in the kitchen on vacation. She got, lets say, a little 'growley' at Lobo when a food dish was up on the counter before being fed. I picked up a plastic bottle next to me and threw it at her next to the ground. That ended THAT attitude for the week. No pennies and it didn't break. Lucky me.
Don't know if it works with cats and it's a small space in a RV to throw a empty jug with a few pennies on the floor of the RV next to Patches.
Would HATE for Patches to go thru the window screen. Hmmmmm, maybe a plastic toy gun with plastic spitting balls or something?
Good luck with such a stubborn cat. How's the FIL?
A determined cat defines persistence. :-)
Good luck.
Aluminum Foil. Cats hate the sound of it. Try someway to secure it to the bottom of the screen or even across the window past the screen on both sides. They say to do that to plants too, so cats don't dig in the dirt to do their business. Thanks for the RV advice. Token's Friend, Annie
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