 | ||||||
| ||||||
Getting the Message
Our young daughter had adopted a stray cat. To my distress, he began to use the back of our new sofa as a scratching post. "Don't worry," my husband reassured me. "I'll have him trained in no time."
I watched for several days as my husband patiently "trained" our new pet. Whenever the cat scratched, my husband deposited him outdoors to teach him a lesson.
The cat learned quickly. For the next 16 years, whenever he wanted to go outside, he scratched the back of the sofa!!
"I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul." Jean Cocteau
Sometimes owners will complain of their cat's inappropriate urination as they move to a new apartment. Often the cat may suddenly start urinating on a particular area of the carpet. The cat may have never displayed this undesirable behavior in the past. While stress may have brought on this behavior, it may be that the carpet was urine-marked by the previous tenant's cat.
