I cannot neglect the Caturday felids, and I’m told it’s Caturday. I present these articles without commentary, as we’re about to disembark fora 2.5-hour bus trip to Marrakesh.
The Dodo explains why cats despise aluminum foil (especially the sound when it crinkles. I don’t remember this from when I owned cats, but perhaps ailurophilic readers can weigh in.
Click the screenshot to read.
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This short article from Science Alert explains the reasons why your cat wakes you up early in the morning. This will not be news to many people. For example, here is Reason#1 and how to fix the issue:
- They’re hungry. (DUH!)
To start addressing this problem, make sure your cat is getting enough to eat throughout the day. You can feed them a meal or a satisfying snack right before you go to bed.
If you usually feed your cat in the morning, you need to make sure your cat is not associating wake up time with breakfast time. Leave a gap between when you get out of bed and when you feed kitty breakfast – aim for at least half an hour.
You can also train your cat to associate something else with getting fed, such as saying “breakfast time!”.
As every cat owner knows, none of this advice will work (there are two other reasons) because underlying every reason is an unmentioned one: “Your cat just likes to piss you off.” But click below if you think the problem can be solved.
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I periodically post Nina Simone’s fantastic live version of “My Baby Just Cares for Me” (see here, for example). While looking up the song on Wikipedia, I found this:
In 1987 a claymation music video was produced by Aardman Animations and directed by Peter Lord. The video prominently features live action footage showing details of a piano, brushes on a snare drum, and a double bass as they play the song. The two focal characters are represented by a singing cat in a club and the cat who is in love with her.
Well, of course I had to look for that video, and sure enough, it’s on YouTube. Enjoy:
h/t: Ginger K.
I’ve had cats that spray in the house and I tried using Aluminum foil to deter them from the spraying in those spots to no avail. They just moved a couple of inches away.
Nina Simone has quite a voice!
Used to have 13 of Nina’s LPs. My previous cats have loved wadded up tinfoil balls.
My cat wakes me up every night. How she knows I have to pee is beyond me. As her reward for the reminder, I give her something to eat. But, I am definitely in control, I think.
Most of my cats have been neutral toward aluminum foil. Some, however, have come running when they heard me crinkle a little ball of it, as that produced a new toy, which they loved. No one has hated it, but then I don’t tend to just tear off a sheet and leave it on the floor.
Another tactic to reinforce feeding time is to use a short whistle. I use the typical two-pitched whistle that sounds like some doorbells (sol-mi for musicians). Anytime they hear that they know food is served, whether it is a meal, a snack, or a treat.
An additional tactic is that I leave my bedroom door open only a few inches during the night. They can come and go, but that means “quiet.” They’ve all learned that there’s no point in disturbing mom as long as the door is cracked rather than fully open.
Crinkling and clicking noises provoked seizures in Marcus Clawrelius (RIP), even after he seemed to lose his hearing. Our vet was never able to explain his reaction or the seizures.
I don’t know whether they care specifically about aluminum foil but they both don’t like anything that makes rustling and flexing noises. They leave the room even if I change the trash can liner which is just a big plastic bag. They also run from garden sprinklers even though they ought to realize they never spray the patio and that people and cats won’t get wet if they stay on the patio.
I believe there’s a common thread. They don’t like anything which interferes with their ability to hear things creeping up on them. It’s obvious that they have amazing hearing. They routinely ignore my movements around the house but if anything unusual happens, they are immediately alert. I suspect their experience of sound is quite different and much richer than ours. They are alerted to unusual sounds, and ignore usual sounds, without conscious attention. Of course, we have a little of that but not to the extent that cats have.
Watching the claymation reminded me of its use in the videos for Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” and The Housemartins’ “Happy Hour” around the same period: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N1tTN-b5KHg
And here are Hull’s finest: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2noese
All our cats enjoy fooling with and making noise with aluminum foil. An old wives’ tale had it that taping aluminum foil to furniture prevented cats from scratching, but it attracts cats here; they pull it to pieces and chase it about.
Our cats also pay little attention to cucumbers, which are said by some to frighten cats. So go figure.
It seems a cruel trick, but you know the way to do it is to put a cucumber behind one when they are not paying attention.
Nice catimation of Nina Simone. Close to brilliant.
All the cats I had were quite fond of a ball of aluminium foil, they positively liked to play with it, without exception.