To Stop a Tiny Predator
Now that it’s been a month or so that we got Tilly, it’s actually quite ridiculous that she will not accept that our other cats do not want to eat her. She still freaks out any time they come near. The repercussions of this are a story for another time, though, because I need to tell the story of how we’re keeping the cats apart.
And before I start, you should know that despite her violent protests, Zoey thinks Tilly is his girlfriend. He comes into the room and sits down right next to her while she hisses profusely. He sits there for hours. I think I did this once in Middle School. I’m waiting for the day when I come home and find rose petals and lit candles surrounding the two of them.
Right now, we’re keeping Tilly in the master bedroom.
Since we moved her up there from the basement, I think she’s only left the room three or four times, and never on good terms. She’s quite content to sit in the windowsill and watch over our cul-de-sac at all hours of the day.
First Line of Defense: The Door
This seems rather obvious, but the first thing we tried was closing the door.
Well, silly us, the door didn’t latch. It didn’t take Zoey long to figure out that all he had to do was push. (I can’t tell you how it made me feel that Zoey figured this out before I did.)
Second Line of Defense: The Table
We considered propping a chair up against the door, but thought that trying times (and a persistent cat) called for more drastic measures. We dragged the card table up from the basement and propped that up against the door.
After accidentally knocking it over ourselves, we knew we had to do something to strengthen the door’s defenses. So we enlisted the help of a 12.4 pound box of kitty litter.
That worked for about twenty minutes. Zoey discovered that if he climbed on top of the litter box and then on top of the table, he could still knock it over.
Third Line of Defense: The Table, Mark II
That’s when we remembered that the table had legs. We put those down to ensure that it wouldn’t be knocked over again.
We did that right before we left to go somewhere for a while. When we got back, we found that Zoey had simply moved the table out of the way. Scratch that idea…
Fourth Line of Defense: The Table, Reinforced
We combined our table with legs idea with our previous kitty litter idea.
The legs would keep the table from falling over and the litter would keep it from being moved. Content with this, we went off to work with confidence.
Upon coming home for lunch, I found that the table had been moved. In case you missed that, let me repeat: Zoey moved a 12.4 pound box of litter and then moved the table. I guess all those kitty creatine shakes are paying off—the box weighed slightly more than he did! Maybe he’s not as out-of-shape as we had previously thought.
Fifth Line of Defense: The Chair
We knew now that it was time to pull out the big guns. We have this enormously-heavy iron chair that we keep in the guest bedroom. We pulled that in and propped it up against the door.
As you can see, the very appearance of the chair strikes fear into the hearts of its beholders. I was barely able to move it when I limited myself to one hand. There was no way Zoey could move that thing.
Within a half hour, Zoey had climbed up on the chair, stood on top of the lip of the table while balancing himself on the chair, and pushed the door open just far enough to jump down in-between the table and the door to finish the job.
Sixth Line of Defense: The Chair Revisited
Janelle had the idea to lay the chair down so Zoey couldn’t stand on it.
When we first did it, Zoey immediately ran up to examine this new test we had laid out for him. After a few minutes of careful examination, Zoey went and got Janelle who was folding laundry in the other room. He sat by the sideways chair, meowing quite pathetically and actually waving his paws as if to say, “Something has gone horribly wrong!”
Zoey followed us around for a little while that evening, meowing and probably saying something like, “Ok, guys, ha ha ha, you’ve had your laughs, but I really need to get in to see my girlfriend now!” Even after I went to bed that night, he stood outside the door and meowed well past midnight.
This actually kept him out for almost 12 hours. I got up the next morning to take a shower, and while I was showering, I heard the now all-too-familiar sound of Tilly hissing. I can’t explain it. I have no idea how, but Zoey actually opened the door.
At this point, we threw up our white flag and told Zoey he could do whatever he wanted. Tilly’s not too happy about it, but we’re fresh out of ideas.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:28 am
[...] saddest part, though, is Zoey. Zoey loved Tilly. After we removed Tilly, he pretty much made the master bedroom his permanent residence. We had [...]
August 12th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
[...] Well, that’s not entirely true. I actually have some scratches from Zoey as well. Zoey likes to explore behind my computer desk. Occasionally, he’ll get the speaker wire wrapped around his leg. When this happens, he’ll briefly try to pull it loose, but then just collapse onto the ground and start wailing. I mean really pathetic crying, too. Not even meows—just a long, sad howl. I went to free him yesterday, and he panicked and dug all of his claws into my right arm. The cat really has no idea how to be mean unless it’s completely by accident, which is actually kind of an endearing quality unless he’s breaking into your room at night. [...]