Tales from the Damp Side: Cats Are Smart

Ever since Smudge arrived 4-5 years ago Chris and I have been in a battle of wits with her, whereby we try to keep her downstairs at night, and she tries to get upstairs to our bedroom. The reason we want to keep her downstairs at night is that she likes to eat between 3-4:00 a.m. which, coincidentally, is when we like to sleep. To alert us to her hunger pangs she makes loud and incredibly irritating noises until a plate of food presents itself. This is very disruptive to our sleep. So having her ensconced in the dining room/kitchen at night, out of sight, out of hearing range, out of mind, has been our goal ever since she was a wee kitten.

The living room/kitchen doesn't lend itself easily to enclosing a cat (a dog, on the other hand, would have been a piece of cake). The dining room has a pocket door that closes but there is no door between the dining room and the kitchen, or between the kitchen and the hallway that leads to the stairs that leads to our bedroom. So we have spent a good part of the last 5 years researching, building, and experimenting with ways create a cat gate that won't let her escape the kitchen.

Cats can jump, climb, knock things down, pull stuff, and apparently, move things that are far heavier than they are. So enclosing a cat in a room that does not have a door is no small matter. There isn't anything readily available on the market that we didn't think she could get past in, oh, about 5 minutes. So we knew it was up to us to save ourselves.

The following is a list of items that we've used over the years to build and enhance our cat gate: a large box that once held a flat screen TV; miscellaneous other pieces of cardboard; duct tape; a backpack; two ten-pound weights; about 1/2 dozen books; a bar stool, an inflatable sleeping pad; a chair; a piece of wood about 2 feet in length; and I'm sure some other things that I can't remember.

In Smudge's previous life she must have been a monkey because she has eventually found the weak spot in every contraption that we've created. Including, last week, our latest pride and joy that had worked seamlessly for most of this winter.

Determined to outsmart our 12 pound cat once and for all, Chris headed to Home Depot with a plan that could only be born of yet another round of sleepless nights. A home-made "DOOR"!

The ingenious little invention consists of a 6 foot tall, 1/4 inch thick, lightweight, flexible piece of wood of some kind; and two latches. Before we go to bed we slide the "door" into place in the existing frame, then bolt the two latches that Chris installed. The latches hold the door in place. The bottom of it cannot be pushed out because the hallway tile is higher than the kitchen floor that's behind it. In the morning we remove the "door" and hang it on a nail the wall at the top of the stairs leading to the basement.

Fantastic! It' only been a few nights but I've got a good feeling about this one. I think Smudge may have finally met her match. (To those who might think, why not install a real door.... we've wished for one many times.... but a real door would be quite awkward in this particular area).

So, with visions of future good night sleeps dancing in my head, I turn my attention elsewhere....

Under the 'But Who's Counting, We're Just In It for the Scenery' category, our cycling stats, year-to-date, for month ending January 2012:

Chris: 261 miles, 23.5 hours of riding, 32,564 feet of climbing
Ellen: 99 miles, 8.28 hours of riding, 9,949 feet of climbing

And some gratuitous photos....