I can foresee a design flaw, which is that the cat will ignore all the specially designated areas and sit on your keyboard instead.
I can foresee a design flaw, which is that the cat will ignore all the specially designated areas and sit on your keyboard instead.
Past experience with cat-wrangling over the years have taught me one thing (amongst many): It doesn't matter what the object is, if human cares about it, cat will use said object as a cat would, in order to communicate with human.
Communications from cat tend to be along the lines of: I'm hungry, or in most cases, I want attention (play/stimulation).
Past objects observed: Keyboards, houseplants, pens & pencils, kitchen area counter and anything on it, pet ants, rock and fossil collection.. the list goes on.
And related to cat areas, the secret that I've found was to never rely on buying fancy cat furniture but rather making a unique spot for cat every few days. Blanket for comfort, areas always in sight range of the work desk but not in it (to be distracting for work). Bonus points if you visit and pet cat when they're sleeping in those spots to reinforce that this is their spot and all is well with safety and comfort.
And same for toys, makeshift toys are cheaper and more effective than overpriced pet store shenanigans (Eg: elastics, pieces of string tied together, sandwich bag clips, small bouncy toys). The secret there is also reinforcing playtime with those toys by simply playing with cat!
Edit: written with cat at arm's length distance in makeshift bed in a chair~
> it doesn't matter what the object is, if human cares about it, cat will use said object as a cat would, in order to communicate with human
If you get them their own thing to fuck around with, they'll fuck around with it instead. If I'm on my laptop and put out another laptop, he'll sleep on that one. I had a problem with him turning on the gas fireplace and so put a little switch on his scratching post–problem solved. It's quite adorable when you see it as them incorporating their behaviour into their default state for your colony.
They are incredibly communicative animals. Their problem seems to be that I am a very stupid creature that often does the wrong thing, like not feeding them every time they’re hungry, sitting at a desk instead of playing with them, carrying them out of the room when they were clearly trying to get on the kitchen counter, and so on.
Or, god forbid, stupid creature that I am, I buy _the wrong flavor food_. Then it's all "why are you trying to poison me, hooman? do you not love me anymore??"
One of the best Human-Cat interactions scenes about food in a movie is the opening 10 minutes from movie The Long Goodbye
Yeah after investing in countless cat toys from the pet store, I found out that my cat's favorites are (in no particular order):
- McDonald's paper straw
- Bird feather from outside
- Empty toilet paper roll
- Shoelace
- Strap of Velcro
- Bottle cap
I think variety is the key, and we've had really good outcomes by having a few pet shop toys (feather on wand, squeaky mouse, ball with bell) that we bring out for a few hours every few weeks and then put away, so it doesn't turn into something normal for them to ignore.
Cat + bottle cap around the hours of 3am - 5am seems to be a preferred form of entertainment, from my experience
Elastic hair ties have always been a favorite of my cats. My wife has to hide them unless she wants to be gifted with the "kill" at 3am.
From my direct multi-year study, the surest way to have a cat not lay in a specific place is to place a fluffy cat bed in that place. Also, no toy is more precious to a cat than a non-toy item stolen from the hooman with hair ties being one of the most precious items.
I awoke this morning to newcat lapping from my bedside drinking glass (with a dash of tea/caffeine). She has two other waterbowls... but I guess is mad at me because the edible I ate last night caused me to sleep in too long for her breakfast likings.
Lil'shit knows this is not allowed, on a tabletop she's not allowed upon, no less!
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I'm not a cat person and somehow have inherited a black kitten from each parent.
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At least she didn't curl up napping upon my Apple Silicon (thankfully kess attractive than older Macbook AMD GPUs)... that's when I know I've actually fucked up #catWorld
Exactly. Contrary to popular belief cats don't sit there because a laptop keyboard is warm. They also sit on external keyboards or even in front of a tablet without a keyboard (blocking the view to the screen). They just want your attention.
Partially correct. For sure a lot of it is getting attention, but they do care about the warmth. I've walked in to my office plenty of times to see my cat sitting on my laptop when I haven't even been in there for hours. She will even find the laptop and lay on it when it's in random places around the house. Reproduced with three different cats over the yeras. The warmth is definitely a cat magnet.
Noticed that in my absence, cats hang where I spend the most of my time when present. If for a few days I only come home to sleep I'll usually find them on my bed. If I work at my desk for a week, then the next days they'll be found on my chair. And so on.. A somewhat reliable habit indicator.
When my cats want warmth, they go on top of my desktop tower (or on my lap under the keyboard tray). If they're at the level of my desk, they're almost definitely angling for attention.
sometimes its scent too.
I'm not sure if this is enough for demanding cats, but I used to type with a small dog bed directly in front of me and my keyboard behind it, so that I'd work typing with my arms around my elderly chihuahua every day. She seemed to like it a lot, and she basically had my attention every time she stirred.
I also felt that it was probably good for me for her to break my flow and demand my attention every now and then. It helped remind me to get up and stretch and be human better than I otherwise would have done.
I have a keyboard tray and a desk with two monitors. Both of my cats love to stand on the space in the desk of whatever monitor I happen to be focusing on more (preferably blocking as much of it as possible from my view). They know exactly what they're doing.
i came across a manuscript once that had a bunch of inky paw prints across a page. the scribe clearly tried to blot one of them, merely smudging it, then decided to let the rest be. it was in a very beautiful hand, and the full page must've taken hours to write. that scribe's exasperation echoes through the ages. i wish i could find that MS again.
to be fair, the page was probably arranged in a nice sunny spot at the time of the incident.
Put a useless keyboard down there and pretend you are typing with your toes.
They're predators. They are very good at understanding where your real attention is.
this is an invitation to toe crimes
this is a good way to lose a toe or two
I put a nice box with a pet safe heating pad and blanket and the cat never sat on my keyboard again. When she wanted my attention she then just stood in front of my face and then would sit back on the blanket eventually
Yep. I have one of these on my desk: https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Cattop/dp/B09F8QQPJH/ (a heating pad shaped like a laptop), and our cat will spend 90% of my workday on it, and the remaining 10% is spent getting my attention (or getting lunch).
It could have a special heated area of the desk that isn't used for any technological purpose
It doesn't work. I have the laptop next to my screen and an external keyboard. The cat always chooses the cold external keyboard instead of the warm laptop, because that's the center of my attention.
Exactly!
Although my last cat was nicer and slept between the keyboard and monitor. Pushing aside every small piece of crap that I kept on the desk of course (had to regularly gather sd cards that she pushed off the desk) but at least she let me see and type!
Split keyboard. Far enough apart and you have a dedicated cat zone.
Rebuttal exhibit A: https://imgur.com/a/Eu8zKMm
My wife, being a genius, has a decoy keyboard. Pretty effective, it usually has a cat sitting on it.
Or more likely on top of your tower pc
Makes sense. Cat probably thought you were grooming and warming up the keyboard just for her.
Exactly my thought, given my experience with fellow felines.
That is inevitable :)