Things my pets have wrecked, part 1
BY NICK BARNETTI used to own a La-Z-Boy chair. It cost me a week's pay, and it looked great. But that was before I got a cat. It was Cat vs La-Z-Boy, and guess who won.
My cat was Pierre, a handsome Russian blue. Here he is, snoozing on the very same La-Z-Boy chair. He liked the chair fine except in one respect, which was that it was upholstered. Pierre went on a mission to correct that fault, and over a period of years he substantially de-upholstered that chair.
First time I saw Pierre stretch up and sink his claws into the back fabric of the chair, I didn't worry. He seemed to do no damage. But silly me. He was only starting.
Usually when I was out, he'd attack the back and both sides. Threads were pulled free to float like a madwoman's hair. The fabric, weakened by constant claw attacks, threatened to come apart under the slightest pressure like a Dead Sea Scroll.
Pierre, of course, applied that pressure.
You remember in the America's Cup, that time when the sail on the New Zealand yacht dramatically split? One second the yacht was scudding across the waves, the next it was stationary, with half a hectare of high-tech fabric soaking in the sea?
Well that's kind of what happened with my chair. When I went out, the chair was intact, albeit frayed. When I got home, the back piece was in tatters, a gaping hole revealing the chair's framing and springs.
Soon the chair's sides were similarly wrecked, great slits growing daily.
There are those who, at this point, would have resorted to duct tape. But I have some pride! No! I fixed the chair using an array of safety pins.
The thing about La-Z-Boys, they still work even if most of the fabric has gone. So it remained as my favourite sitting place. If a visitor was due to arrive, I'd drape an Indian bedspread over the chair. I had started realising that you can't have nice things in the house and at the same time have a cat. Or at least, you can have nice things, but you have to learn to let them go.
All this time, by the way, a purpose-built cat's scratching post stood unused right next to the chair. Pierre had no interest in it.
He did have one other destructive habit. Dicky digestion caused him to vomit occasionally on the carpet. So, because Pierre ate only Fancy Feast Salmon, my carpet sported a growing number of little salmon-pinkish stains - scarcely visible if I'd been able to get to them in time with cleaning stuff, but in a few corners, and one spot right next to a door, they were undisguisable.
Well I say my carpet, actually it was the landlady's. When she came to call on me, I'd have to go to great lengths to hide these little pink maps of Ireland. Pieces of furniture had to be moved to strange spots, and objects would be placed over the worst stains. The house, though tidied to a landlady-pleasing level, was scarcely navigable due to objects sitting in random places.
Eventually a water leak (not my fault) prompted the landlady to replace the whole carpet, not long before I left. So she never did see those pink puke-shadows.
Have you ever lived with a pet on a destructive mission? What's the worst or weirdest damage a pet has ever caused in your home? Photographic evidence may be submitted to blogs@stuff.co.nz.
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So far the cat is doing a reasonable job of destroying our lounge suite - much to my wifes disgust. The dogs have chewed the corners of the house, their current kennel and parts of their run, destroyed two bonsai and completely destroyed their first kennel. One of them must have slammed into it because the sides were literally caved in.
I have recently heard that spraying the furniture with white vinegar will deter cats from scratching it. I have yet to try it, but I am desperate enough to try anything!
These comments might make more landlords say no to pets..
We had a Chinchilla that chewed through my ethernet cable and left me without internet for almost a week. One day I left the window open and it ran away. It was a good day.
I went to Animates and suffered a near cardiac arrest at the price they were asking for cat-scratching posts. So I built my own from scrap timber. A base box with holes large enough to hide inside and ambush other cats, a 6 foot high post to climb and scratch, a crows nest basket near the top for sitting in and looking owners in the eye and a platform at the very top for sneering down at the owners. The base and plaftorms were covered in carpet and the post was tightly wrapped in hessian. I sprayed it liberally with catnip spray which got them smearing themselves all over it. 3 years later I threw it out when we shifted. The hessian and the post underneath it were shredded and since then our cats have returned to destroying one of our couches. Time to build another one I think.
I should add that we mixed cayenne pepper, tabasco sauce and some other hot stuf into a paste to smear where the dogs chewed...one of the dogs didn't even want to go near the stuff, unfortunately the other saw it as some sort of tasty condiment.
I couldn't agree more, there is definitely a gradual rearranging of the boundaries when you have a pet ... ours starting with obsessively de-fur-inating ourselves before leaving the house to more of a (sign of resignation!) yeti look.
Issy (our lovable fur child) has one main bad habit, which means any electrical cables that are left unsupervised can expect a serious, show no mercy biting!
But the worst yet was the fate of a very nice couch which she confused (read willfully misused!) for her dirt box and apparently once youv'e had couch you can't go back! Need I say more ...
I had two dogs (pups really at the time) and a brand new fabric lounge suite consisting of a 2 and 3 seater. My partner at the time and I left them inside for a few hours whilst we were out and came home to find the lounge redecorated with fabric and foam from the 4 large seat cushions from both sofas. Sitting looking guilty in the living room were 2 Labs who if they could have talked would have been pointing and saying "It was him....." I couldn't even really punish them as I didn't know which one was the culprit or if they had taken turns pulling out hunks of foam and ensuring the premature ageing of their owner on his return. This would have made a good advertisement for contents insurance (or for de-toothing your pets) but unfortunately we did not have the former and the latter would just make "Fetch" a slobbery, slippery waste of time. I still have the lounge suite but with the cushions upside down and reversed so the nice cold metal zips remind you when you recline in shorts of the joys of pet ownership.
I've had many dozens of pets (everything from hawks who used to come inside to German Shepherds and numerous cats) and I've almost never had a problem with them destroying things. The answer seem to be to provide them with lots of substitutes--as Paul mentioned above--and to nip any chewing behaviour in the bud by distracting them.
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My baby rabbit went on a mission to destroy everything. So far she's ruined 2 laptops, a GHD and is slowly chewing her way through my flash rimu dining table and chairs. On Saturday I bought her a rabbit mansion - outside - which she can destroy to her hearts content!
When my dachshund was a puppy she enjoyed chewing on my brand new coffee table while I was at work. Nowadays she enjoys pulling on the table runner and seeing what can fall down off the table for her to play with. How she reaches that table runner (she's smaller than a cat) I will never know.