zeborah

Pursuant to Boots attempting to wake me at unholy hours of the morning, I have eventually trained her to realise that I don't get up to feed her until my alarm clock (ie my cell phone) goes off at 6am.

One weekday morning, having set my alarm later than usual so I could sleep in, I woke to the sound of something being dropped. Then a quieter noise, then something being dropped again. Possibly the same something. On discreet investigation, I discovered that Boots was picking up the cell phone in her mouth and dropping it repeatedly, presumably in an attempt to make it go off so I'd get up and feed her.

After I'd finished laughing, I took pity on her. No, I didn't get up and thereby undo weeks of training. I retrieved the cell phone from her, reset the alarm for a few minutes thence, put it down again and 'slept' until it went off and I could legitimately get up and feed her. Nowadays the alarm is always set for 6am, 6:30 if I need to sleep in a bit, 7 if both of us have been up really really late; and if when it goes off I still need a few more hours sleep I feed her and then go back to bed.

In other news, after I played a cruel practical joke on her some time ago ("Hey, Boots, wanna a'venture?") Boots discovered she could jump up to the TV, DVD player, etc, which was really fun. It was particularly fun because she could chew phone cords and power cords and antenna cords. Even more so because I belatedly realised that I shouldn't have introducted her to this spot, and so whenever she jumped up there she had my full and undivided attention.

I managed to perch an ironing board and two lids from A4 paper boxes in such a way (after much trial and error) that Boots couldn't jump up without falling back down in a tangle of box lids. This seemed to dampen her enthusiasm.

Until she found the armchair.

So we have electronics on the left; to the right stretches a mantlepiece over the glorious gasfire; to the right of this is the armchair. Boots discovered that she could jump onto the back of the armchair, jump from that to the mantlepiece, and from there reach the electronics.

At first I tolerated her being on the mantlepiece (but moved my trinkets to the back after she knocked one off and chipped it) but was training her to back away slowly from the electronics with her paws in the air on command. Problem was, a typical encounter went:

Zeborah: Boots, no.
Boots backs away, pauses, then reaches a paw for the radio
Zeborah: Boots, no!
Boots backs away, pauses, then reaches a paw for a CD
Zeborah: Boots! No!
Boots adds a second paw
Zeborah stands up
Boots backs away. Zeborah sits down again. Boots pauses, then reaches a paw for the phone cord
Zeborah stands up and sternly walks Boots back along the mantlepiece and down onto the armchair
repeat one minute later

I got bored of this, so started calling her, whenever she was on the armchair (ie before she could actually see all the temptations of the electronics), to jump down and come to me. This worked better, but still got repetitive, particularly at 9pm. (Her supper is at 9:30, so by 9 she's really trying to get my attention.) So, having not needed the box lids on the electronics side for some time, I balanced one of them on the armchair side of the mantlepiece.

Shortly thereafter, Boots was standing on the back of the armchair looking up at the box lid with a frustrated expression on her face. She inched as close to the edge of the armchair as she could get then reached up with a paw - couldn't quite reach to knock the lid out of the way and had to back up again before she over-balanced. Studied the lid again. Looked around the room searching for another way - rested her eyes reproachfully on me for a moment - looked back at the lid in the ne plus ultra of frustration. After smothering many giggles I called her to get down so she could pretend she wasn't actually giving up, she was coming just to please me.

--And shortly after that, she was launching herself at the electronics from the now unprotected other side of the room, which she's neglected for the couple of weeks since she discovered the armchair access. I had to replace the ironing board and one box lid; so far this seems sufficient....