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I wish I could get her to understand that sometimes doors need to be closed. She hates a closed door, be it the front door or the door to the bathroom or balcony, regardless of whether anyone is on the other side of the door or whether she herself cares at all about the other side of the door.
She can also open doors, so we have to bolt the front door. Our bathroom doesn’t have a lock though, so we’re just waiting for an awkward incident there.
Can I ask about the most important situations where you NEED this to be the case? Like pick your battles but when do you need to take up that battle aha?
Basically just the front door and the bathroom door, though we pee and shower with the door open, as long as nobody’s visiting. We’ve got a storage room that we’d like to not have to heat, but we can’t keep the door shut lol
Can you simply carve out catdoors where privacy isn't necessary and simply more strenuously enforce it when it is? There must be a way. I don't even know how I did it other than non-violently freakout and try to add a cue to the freakout for them to internalize that I can safely rehash when I need to reinforce it?
I’d love to, and we will when we’re in a more permanent place, but we’re in a rental with a scummy landlord right now. We’re looking for a new one, but it’s probably going to be until summer at least
Honestly, just like freakout (lovingly) a little and raise your voice a bit and usher 'em away without hurting or physically connecting and scold them a bit+put on a show so they know you're pissed.
Cats do it ALL the time, the hiss and get pissy and like 30 seconds later its like nothing ever happened. You sort of have to have at least or more of a pair of balls than they do. Show 'em who's boss and reward with treats strategically or when they voluntarily comply
Edit: my safe/trigger word for this is
Outta Dare (outta there) 😹
I’ll try that, it’s been mostly either ignoring her meowing or meowing back so far, which doesn’t exactly work well
The other thing I do is ask them point-blank in a disappointed voice
Why u do that? 😿
And I repeat it a couple times, really hamm it up and sort of resist them for a moment cuz they'll want to rub up against your legs but they need a moment of seperation to realize that they're doing wrong
Oh god 💔 I’m fine doing that about her jumping on the stove or something that can endanger her, but if it’s just annoying me, I don’t want to cramp her style. I know that’s nuts, but luckily she’s a very well behaved cat whom I adopted as an already trained adult. I’ll recruit my husband for moral support 😅
The more you use any trick the less effective it is. This is with anything, anywhere, anyone. You MUST pick your battles.
That's why I have zero respect for parents who constantly threaten the children with something + everyone puts on a show ("Nooooo, Nooooo, Nooooooo?!!!!!) and it somehow deescalates to "Well alright, stop fucking around" --> nothing is learned and nobody learns it
Yeah. I am 100% not cut out for rearing anything, as I try to reason respectfully with whatever I’m interacting with. It was hard to realize that my niece doesn’t actually care why she can’t eat candy, but just wanted to distract me with a conversation so she could sneak candy.
I’m actually getting my masters in education (language instruction for adults, thank god), and even with fully capable adults there’s a lot of classroom management that I just have to put on a fake strict teacher persona and power through. If you try to do something and then walk it back, you’re always lost though.
Same struggle, the other cats know to look to the other one as the resident little bandit, such little shits lol
In what world is the hierarchy NOT supposed to be
Door > Cat
?
Edit: its honestly not that bad aha. They're generally pretty respectful, but they know to stay away during #2. That's a hard ljne I had to draw
My cat is far too smart for me, which should be embarrassing, but she’s very smart. She once broke a glass bottle (with water in it, so no smells) on a tile floor, then pulled a bath mat over the shards so she didn’t hurt herself. But she also straight up hides things for fun sometimes.
Shitting in the toilet