Another use for a Mouse Trap

[ChrisA Edwards]

A few years back, we had a cats. I had two cat doors, one from my mud room to my garage and from the garage to outside, so he could pretty much come and go.

At night he would come in around our bed time and for some reason would jump on the kitchen counter. There was nothing up there for them to eat but it bugged me when I would hear him jump off the counter back onto the floor, especially if he heard me get out of bed.

So I racked my brains on what I could do as a deterrent and I came up with this idea.

Knowing the cat could not see the kitchen counter surface from the floor, I bought about 10 mouse traps, loaded them and placed them on the kitchen counter. I then carefully placed a towel on top of the mousetraps.

That evening, as we lay in bed, I heard the cat flap down in the mud room, indicating the cat had come in. About 20 seconds later, all the mousetraps went off and I heard the cat land back on the floor and high tail it out of the cat door.

As soon as the cat left up and landed on the towel on the counter surface, the slight movement of the towel was enough to trigger the traps.

After that, he never jumped on the kitchen counter again.

We had another couple of pieces of furniture that the cat liked to jump up on. I repeated this same process and that cured him of that as well.

[Jim Koepke]

Hmm?

jtk

[Myk Rian]

Genius....

[Bruce Wrenn]

Genius....


Just for the cat owners: Remember that the same paws that are walking on your counter are the same ones that walked in the litter box. Personally, I prefer to NOT EAT out of the litter box! Don't like to eat at friends house who have indoor cats. Cats, cook them just right and they taste like chicken.

[Jim Koepke]

Just for the cat owners: Remember that the same paws that are walking on your counter are the same ones that walked in the litter box. Personally, I prefer to NOT EAT out of the litter box! Don't like to eat at friends house who have indoor cats. Cats, cook them just right and they taste like chicken.

This is why people wash their hands after using the restroom and clean their counters before preparing a meal.

jtk

[Robert Engel]

And who said you can’t train a cat, well by persuasion, anyway.

Reminds me - if a cat puts its paw in a hot frying pan once, he’ll never do it again - but he won’t in a cold either.

He may still try it again. I’ll bet if you just leave a couple towels in the counter it will work.

[Roger Feeley]

Cats are proof that the earth is round. If it was flat, they would have batted everything over the edge by now.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Cats are not house pets. At best barn mousers out on the farm and the worst, targets when they are out hunting baby rabbits.

The domestic cat is not mentioned in the Bible. Not once.

[Mel Fulks]

Sounds like it’s possible that there wasn’t any reason to mention cats. There are other animals that were also not mentioned.

[Warren Lake]

There were 10 shootings in toronto in the last several days. Most animals are better behaved that some humans. Ive never once had a cat try and shoot me.

[Malcolm McLeod]

... Ive never once had a cat try and shoot me.

But if only they had opposable thumbs, look out!

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Cats create a lot of damage around farms. Using grain bins for litter boxes, (just before taking the grain to the processor Put that fact in your corn flakes) They transmit diseases to livestock and a disease to pregnant women that can cause blindness in infants. They decimate the population of small game etc. A strange cat near my house or barn is a bio hazard and subject to elimination. Fortunately, cat is a favored food for foxes.

[Rob Luter]

We had a friend with the same issue. He placed several strips of duct tape on the counter, sticky side up. In the night they heard a commotion. In the morning they found the cat curled up in the corner looking very distressed. They clipped his fur to remove the tape and never had a problem again.

[Jim Koepke]

[edited] Ive never once had a cat try and shoot me.

467147


jtk

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I had a co-worker that poured cooking oil over her entire counters so when the cat jumped up on them, it slid right off with a look of shock on it's face. She said that cured the cat from jumping on the counters.

Years ago, I had a dog that lived her life acting as if she were 5 minutes away from dying of starvation. As soon as she was tall enough, she would raid the counters for any possible edible item. She was scary smart when it came to food motivation and seemed to know how many seconds she had between trips to the car while unloading grocery bags. I hot wired the counters. After a few days with the wiring in place, I turned it on after unloading the first bags. While stepping over the threshold with another load of bags, I heard the surprised "yip" and heard the scramble on the floors and she raced out to greet me and tell me there was a dog-eating monster in the kitchen. After a few more attempts at the coveted people-food, she turned her attention to the trash can. I hot wired the can and the lid and soon put an end to raiding the can. She was one of the best dogs I ever had. She was constantly outsmarting me. :cool:

[Steve Demuth]

Most animals are easily trained not to do something with a little shock and aversion therapy. I've convinced more than one dog that chasing cars is not something they want to do by plunking them in the backside with an air rifle shooting BBs at low power when they take after a vehicle. Since I'm standing on the step or somewhere else not near the car when I do it, they don't associate the sudden, sharp sting with me, but with the car they are after. It never takes more than a couple of lessons, and the learning has always been permanent. Those couple of stings have added years to those dogs lives, 'cause there is simply no way they'd have not been hit and killed eventually if they'd have kept up their habits.

We have one dog who truly believed that his calling in life was chasing sheep. I used the same method on him, and it worked as well. A few well placed stings, and he decided that sheep were for admiring from a distance. But the sequel was a little more interesting in this case. He is a very smart and easily trained dog, and after he quit chasing the sheep, he'd sit and watch them through the fence. You could almost see the gears turning in his brain as he pondered how in the hell they could bite him in the backside when he was chasing them. But at the same time, he knew it was me and the black air rifle that did it. To this day, if he is refusing to come in when I call, all I have to do is stand on the porch with that rifle in my hand, and the moment he sees it, he stops, gives me a dirty look, and runs into the house. If he's not in a position to see it, the sound of cocking the rifle will do it. It's been a decade since that rifle stung him, but he chases neither cars nor sheep, and it still brings him instantly into the house - or at least it did last time I tried it, over a year ago. It hasn't been needed, because my wife discovered that this dog, who is generally fairly indifferent about his grub, will sell his very soul for peanut butter. She feeds it to squirrels and birds, and has a couple of hollow bones she stuffs it into as treats for the dogs. One whiff of peanut butter when she opens the tub, and a glimpse of that bone, and this dog, who generally is not very interested in people, becomes a salivating, "I'll do anything you want," disciple of Pavlov.