Beating cats

[HopeydaFish]

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The rules we set before I agreed to let the cat move in were these:
1) Not allowed in the bedroom or the my office. Ever.
2) The cat must be bathed regularly.
3) The house must be kept clean of cat hair. I agreed to buy a Roomba to help with the cleaning.
4) Cat litter must be kept in order. I agreed to buy a littermaid to help with that.

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You don't really know anything about cats, do you?

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Yeah, he's in for a rude awakening.

[wdeadwyler]

My mom's fiancee is allergic to cats and he has lived in the same house as my two cats for four years. He sneezes alot, but it could be ok depending on your allergy.

Cats are perceptive creatures, if you speak to it harshly when it is around and pick it up (cats hate it when you pick them up by the scruff of the neck), and toss it out of any room you are in, it will soon learn that you are not to be messed with. DO NOT BEAT IT. That is horrible and cruel. As a cat lover, the fact that you even entertain this notion is horribly offensive. Just be mean to it and don't pet it and it will soon not want to be around you anyway.

Edit: I forgot about this technique so I have added it. Cats HATE the feeling of aluminum foil. If you put some on your doorway floor to your bedroom, the cat will not want to cross it. Eventually, the cat will learn to associate coming into your room with the unpleasant feeling of the tinfoil, and then you can remove the foil and the cat will not enter. Repeat for office.

[deacsoft]

swede123, good point.

private joker, I don't really care to take medication for things like this but do take Allegra for seasonal allergies. If it come to that point I will probably consult my doctor to see about a year round perscription. My allergic reaction to cats isn't that bad as long as they and the home containing them is maintained. I just couldn't sleep on a pillow full of cat hair or hold the cat for extended periods of time.

The Goober, thanks for the littermaid review and the other ideas. I'll surely be taking that into consideration.

wdeadwyler, I would never actually have any desire to beat a cat. The only reasons it even entered my mind was because I couldn't think of a different way to go and do know that cats can be quite responsive to conditioning. I would never beat this or any other animal.

Everyone, You're correct. I know little to nothing about having an indoor cat besides what I don't want to happen.

[Landon_McFly]

Personally, I'd go with this...




Probably the fastest way to get your point across.

I am allergic. Ed and I have three cats. Ed's cat likes to sleep on my head. My allergies are really bad right now.
But I love the cat. I love my cats more though [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

We have a littermaid. Actually, we have two. We each had one before we moved in together. We love the Litermaid. But one of my cats won't use it. It freaks her out.

Have fun with the cat.

Allegra works well for my cat allergies. I take allegra and flonase daily, and since I've moved back into a house with a cat, I only get the urge to sneeze once in awhile. Its good stuff.

[Blarg]

Most cats know right away who is a cat person and who is not. They tend to pick up on those things lightning fast and act in accordance before you even realize anything has gone wrong. You may not have to do a thing to get the cat to stay away from you. You may even have to work hard not to have it get up and move away when you sit too close, in the living room or such. Your worries are probably a little exaggerated here.

Barring a cat just following it's instincts naturally, the spray bottle is a good idea, especially if you do it when the cat can't see it is you. Just give them the general willies about being in your room.

Don't go out of your way to get the cat pissed at you, or you will find it peeing on your jacket when you lay it on the bed, etc. They retaliate, even if you're just thinking it.

But your hopes of keeping the place free of cat hair are unrealistic, too. Even people with dead noses can smell a house that has a cat in it even if the litterbox isn't even indoors and the place is immaculate. Their smell can almost vanish if you're used to it, but if you're not ... you and your friends will know it's there. Don't expect your girlfriend to be able to eliminate all traces of the cat's presence.

The allergies to cats supposedly come from the proteins in their spit. This means that if you have one of those cats who is a sloppy wet licker when self-cleaning, it'll be worse, and that if you see the cat doing so, you might want to stay out of that area for a couple hours. It also means that if your cat gets the occasional bath, it might very well help, as it washes away the residue of all those spit baths.

[Blarg]

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To reduce your allergies:

Hardwood is better than carpet.
Get a good HEPA air purifier and put it in your bedroom.
If possible, keep the cat out of the bedroom at all times.
Have her brush and wipe the cat down regularly.
Feed the cat high-quality food.

If these steps help your allergies, how about you make an effort to accept the cat into your life? They're really wonderful animals. If you can't at least give it a shot, having the cat come live with you is a really terrible idea for everybody.

Obviously, don't beat the cat.

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Great post.

I very strongly agree about NEVER letting the cat in the bedroom. EVER. If you go to sleep with the cat in there, it will have hours to expose you, and you will have hours to build up exposure. They are also nocturnal, and will often run and jump around at early morning hours, wake you up to try to play or see if you're alive, whatever. It can be extremely frustrating in an adorable kind of way that makes you want to punt them over the fence.

Plus, their hairs will find a way into your closets and you will find yourself picking cat hair off your suits and jackets and shirts and pants all the time, even if the cat never touches them and never gets in the closet even once.

Plus, clean as cats are, let's face it, they don't wipe their asses. Perfectly clean, they sadly are not. Have one trot by your face with a freshly shat back door and you'll become aware how much the idea of a cat's cleanliness is a myth. They do NOT lick their bungholes. They WILL drag whatever stayed stuck around with them, and you don't want that stuff by your face.

If a man's home is his castle, you should be able to have at least one or two rooms that cat is not allowed in, ever. If your girlfriend is like most people, she'll just do what she wants and not give a damn anyway, even if she agrees, because it doesn't concern her directly and people love being transgressive and sneaky. But, it's worth a shot trying to get her to take very seriously that sneezing and being allergic during the day is one thing, but you need to sleep every night without problems, unless you win the lottery and stop having to go to work in the mornings.

The brushing and wiping down is a good idea too, as is the HEPA filter.

I do predict you might wind up liking the cat more than you think you would, though. They're really pretty cool, as LFS notes, very low cost to maintain, and basically zero maintenance. Not a bad deal.

[Blarg]

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She's agreed to take full care of it (meaning that I have no cat responsibilities what so ever).

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Meaning you have agreed to buy her all kinds of gadgets so that she doesn't have to take care of it at all. The Roomba I can maybe understand, but its not hard to clean out a litter box. It takes a couple minutes. Why not just buy her this:


and let her go to town?

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The idea that someone can't just scoop out the box a couple times a day is mind-boggling to me.

Even more so when the OP says she doesn't even work for a living. What the ...?

Seriously, if she can't scoop out the litter box, I give her zero chance to successfully do one single other thing she has agreed to do regarding the cat. This is really ground zero of the laziness/commitment barometer.

[Mvcode3]

I heard a good savage beating is a great way to keep small childern away from you also.