posted
Well, I am so proud of her! Yet, what a hassle! We still think we can keep her out of a couple rooms of the house which are too difficult to 'kitten proof'
You'd think that just means 'keep the door closed', but in fact, that door doesn't close well (a heavy shoe rack (or something) has pulled it out of line on its hinges, so the doorknob 'tab' doesn't line up with the door frame 'slot'
For a long time, she was stymied by our pinching a folded kleenex in the door, providing enough friction to defeat her kitten muscles/interest level.
But recent weather has made the light and smell coming from under the door just too darn appealing for her, and she has learned a trick. She lies on her side, works her claws into the gap between the door and the frame, then head butts the door and does 'pull ups' on her side until it opens. And this makes her much stronger than the kleenex friction.
So, being an engineering family (including, apparently, the cat), we cobbled together something out of cardboard and tape which hooks on to the doorknob, and then reaches around the door frame, preventing the doorknob from opening 'into the room'
Mark 1 of that worked for about a minute.
Mark 2 has some stiffeners, but once she works her claws into the gap, she's basically a super hero, so cardboard isn't really up to the task. A nice piece of spring steel would be perfect, and I imagine this is a real product you can buy (perfect for your home dungeon!)
In the mean time, engineering solution number 2 ('a huge piece of cardboard covering the lower half of the door completely, blocking the light/smell and making it impossible to get her claws into the crack.
Unless she works out how to remove the cardboard.. which I think she just did.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10884 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
This is also a 'big boy task' where I need to fix it for real by watching enough YouTubes first.
The hinges don't actually look 'wrong', and I doubt my ability to make them change their angles. I think I will go the root of attacking the metal plate on the door jamb
1.) work out where the error is (metal or wood)
2.) lower the plate, or file down the side that binds;
3.) and maybe the fault is just in the hole in the wood that is intended to have been scooped out. Maybe I just need a little chisel work.
But it starts with measuring/marking so as to know where I need to create clearance.
Except in the meantime, my wife figured out how to crawl into the room and then use a standard doorstop on the inside... some sort of magic trick.
----
Anyway, to prepare for drilling new mounting holes for the plate (holes which are sort of overlapping the original holes), they did this:
1.) remove the screws 2.) dip toothpicks in super glue and jam 2 or 3 into each hole and pack them in tight. 3.) let it dry, score and then snap off the excess 4.) drill out the new holes, starting with a teensy drill and moving up in small steps until you get what you need.
They then used a 1" chisel to dig out the bottom of the area where the plate would now reach. and a smaller chisel to scoop out the 'slot' completely. Ended up with a perfectly centered latch.
But why was the door off kilter in the first place? I have always suspected the thing hanging on the door, but that's probably unfair. The house itself might have just sagged through the decades, and possibly was never completely centered. I know it went through a phase of being 'difficult, but not impossible' to close it.
If the real problem really is the hinges... well, then I can move the plate back up, after the door specialist.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10884 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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Her cycle is definitely HUNT KILL EAT WASH SLEEP <repeat>, and the KILL part is very important to her and she simply MUST bite something. And she bites very very hard. I'm sure she would 'accidentally' kill any small bird we let her get close to. She would just want to 'play' with it, but the 'pon far' (blood fever, I mean) would surely overcome her otherwise genteel nature.
While I'm not sure how exactly regular she is, I would say her big hunting phases are at dawn and dusk, but I suspect she has at least 4 cycles per day.
She has abstract needs where she demands I accompany her to a food bowl (which isn't empty) and watch her eat. It's the only time it seems she demands being petted, as well. Something about being petted improves her digestion. It's also possible she is nervous about "mirror cat" who is always there watching her as she eats. She's not sure about "mirror cat" She understands mirrors close up, but I think she thinks they are glass doors when seen from across the room.
I know she chooses locations where she can use mirror reflections to monitor hallways, and if something appears she navigates straight to it and not to the reflection.
And yet, when eating, she is constantly making furtive glances at mirror cat.
If I try to ignore her, knowing that she is capable of handling the hunger all on her own, she just continues to 'ring my doorbell' (each room has something she will lightly attack to get attention) until I accompany her on what feels like an unnecessary involvement, yet clearly it's important to HER, so it's a compliment, even if it's an inconvenience.
And most of her attempts to climb things I don't want her to climb, seem ultimately to have the goal "get close to the humans, ideally higher up than them, but out of reach, but close"
I like to think that means she likes us (she gives us the nice eye blinks, and purrs and such, and makes happy noises upon greeting, and rubs her happy tail against us), but it's also true that she wants cat treats. She knows where all the treat bags are, and usually is driving us towards them. Like "Have you checked the magic bag yet today> Surely some more treats have spawned in the bag" (I lied to her and told her the bag could only make a couple treats a day)
We have a small backyard that has some nice plants in it and a couple bird baths, so we have a collection of birds and squirrels that visit each day. The first thing I do when waking up (and it might well be that I only wake up because the cat has just walked on my head, so she might always be in control of this timing), anyway, first job is to go downstairs, turn the xmas tree lights on (she loves them), and open the curtail to expose the back yard
Between watching the fauna and thinking about the nearby treatbag, she is extremely happy in that room. She just orbits purring.
Here comes the street sweeper, and for the first time since covid, I have moved my car in time so the mountain of leaves can be removed.
But, of course, I am upstairs, ostensibly trying to work, and she needs me every couple of minutes during her HUNT phase. And I guess my ceremoniously giving her her 10am and 10pm food allotments might actually be the defintion of KILL on some days where she doesn't get something official to bite first.
But I write today, because of her behaviour when she is very sleepy, but not really in sync with her natural cycle (like if I wake up before her, and sort of trigger her morning before she was ready)
At that point she becomes very needy, and if I follow her around, it's clear she has no clue as to what she wants. She's just sleepy. One of her doorbell locations (again, touching things I don't really want her to touch, yet am not so worried about that I actually move them out of reach, though that is not always possible) is on top of a particularly rickety pile that is already destined to collapse with any light earth tremor, and certainly can't support her weight. Plus it's at an inconvenient angle (thanks to the other piles) to gently remove her, and it's just new/complicated enough for her that she doesn't really have an exit strategy, so she is kind of stuck, but not wanting help, and, because she is sleepy, she will bite anything that comes towards her, like my wrists, which look like the back of the neck of some delicious prey (at least while she's in this state)
It's like she will STARE at the back of my wrist HUNGRILY, and if I hold still, her mouth will be pulled magnetically towards me until at a certain distance a switch clicks in and she pounces. She only bites super lightly (after years of training), and if I remind her successfully, she is very gentle and it's just another paw, as it were, her only opposable thumb, so to speak. But if I let her linger, another switch flips and she goes into full moray eel mode and clamps down HARD with a dreamy look of extreme satisfaction. "I must have blood! Feed me, Seymour!"
At that point it's more or less impossible to withdraw without some torn flesh (rubbing alcohol and Neosporin, always nearby)
Anyway, we understand this behaviour enough (can predict it, I mean) that we generally can avoid triggering it, or sensing that she needs to 'play rough with the padded cat puppet', and she gets through it and can settle down and sleep.
But she's done this all her life, and when we first met her, we didn't understand, and thought she was just insane and wanted to kill us, so there were some unfortunate struggles that probably set back our bonding, and maybe left her with traumatic memories than can trigger more biting.
So now I just try to be stoic, let her bite me, use a calm voice to encourage her to not go pon fahr. And usually, it's like she is using the bite to show affection and she just applies the lightest of pressure (now).
Note: we don't 'play with her attacking our hands', we have loads of surrogate toys for her to bite on, but biting us still comes up at these times.
She collects shoe laces. There are several she has had since her first day in the house. She drags them around to where she feels they should go (up and down stairs, on and off of beds, etc) and reacts oddly if you take one. Less "let's play" and more "that's mine, please leave it where I left it"
She doesn't completely understand how her arms work, and will try to grab something 'behind the mirror' or 'in the box' and her arm will actually be off in some random direction. It's like she's got the general idea, but doesn't completely understand all the details.
She spent much of her youth under our bed, and as she grew, she evtentually only fit when 'on her side' and she developed a lot of sideways habits. Like she will lie on her side and pull herself along thae carpet at high speed (I mean, really forcefully). We also have some carpeted steps and she likes to 'wall walk' along them (sideways cat mode)
I like to think she is a space cat that grew up in zero G and isn't bound by conventional definitions of UP and DOWN.
ANYWAY, this morning she rang my bell from 5am to 9am, with a sleepy bite-a-thon around 9, which I toughed out and now her has finally passed out on her little 'high in the air, bed' (one or two of these in every room).
And now it's time for her 10am feeding, and I think I will just chill until she wakes up.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10884 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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-------------------- "You don't have to love every skin posted, but you shouldn't post DESTRUCTIVE criticism, just CONSTRUCTIVE criticism." Samsyn Posts: 2062 | From: Behind you... | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Oi, you got a GS code request Dan, new purchase.
-------------------- Innovation aimed at benefiting humanity is useless if it’s only accessible to a wealthy minority. Posts: 3494 | From: The Bat Lair | Registered: Apr 2008
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