I had a realization. My cat is not destructive; she's an unclutterer! The bill I accidentally dropped on the floor tonight was a reminder of her talents. She immediately pounced on it and chewed it to pieces with the efficiency of a high power shredder. She has clawed and vomited on all my furniture, carpets, and window treatments so that I would not become unduly attached to them. The item left any surface (such as a pen) she gleefully swipes right off? Just a commitment to minimalism. All cables and cords she gnawed to bits before I discovered Critter Cords? Her person needed to learn cable management. She has also taught me to promptly put my dirty dishes away, because if not she will attempt to clean them for me (some kitties just adore marinara sauce). Sometimes I have foolishly resisted her uncluttering efforts, like when I insisted on keeping the doors on my kitchen cupboards...such fun to crook open with a paw, and slam shut in the middle of the night! Now if I'd simply emptied the cupboards and removed the doors, I wouldn't have had to install unattractive child safety closures. So here's to you, my darling little purrmonster, you are the perfect uncluttering inspiration! :) And dear god, how much more effective could you be without another cat buddy to distract you?! Let's hope we never find out.
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Posted 1 year ago #
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I hear you, Anita... This evening, my eldest furbaby Ludwig decluttered the glass of Scotch I was sipping. (mops dining room table and floor and tosses jeans in laundry hamper)
Posted 1 year ago # -
wonderful! cats as unclutterer. :)
i think i have a semi-professional unclutterer in my house, too. it´s a great dane and and she helps me to organize and unclutter by marking needless stuff with a coat of freshly produced froth. we have marks of froth for "put the paper in the file on the shelf", "clean the windows", "wash your trousers", "put the cheese in the fridge" and many more. shoes and sometimes eyeglasses not in use are decluttered and carved in the garden. last weekend 3 lbs of beef were defined as clutter and therefor immedialtely disposed. (sigh, the guests had noodles instead) how would i unclutter without my dog... :)Posted 1 year ago # -
Our lovely Hazel decluttered our bank account when she bit the head off her favoured toy and it became lodged in her intestine. We now call her "The Cat with the Golden Gut."
She creates much of the clutter in the house with toys and her scratchople. However, she declutters the stress in our lives and that is worth everything.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I can identify with this :) Ds2 got some presents from his grandma recently, mostly rubbishy stuff. So dh put the bag containing the presents on the kitchen floor and left it there for a few days. I discovered one of the cats thought it was for weeing on, so I had to throw out the bag and all its contents. Shame :)
Also, if I don't put my veg box in the larder and leave it out, the cat also thinks it's for weeing on, quite an incentive to be tidy!Posted 1 year ago # -
Cats are amazing unclutterers. What's that? You left your ring on the table? Let me help you put that away by pawing and chasing it all over the house; on hardwood floors; in the middle of the night. You say you want to have plants in your house? Silly human, they're far too much upkeep; let me help you out by knocking them down and spreading dirt all over the house. You left your jeans on the bed instead of putting them away? Perfect, it'll give me a chance to coat them in fur; you need a new look anyway, and fur is SO in.
Posted 1 year ago # -
this was one way in which our cat helps to get laundry put away faster. if this kids let their laundry baskets sit in the laundry room for too long and the cat discovers this, she uses those folded fresh from the dryer clothes for her bed. never mind the fact that i bought her a bed or two in the past and she'll have nothing to do with them.
Posted 1 year ago # -
My two little chihuahuas never cause problems but my MIL, WOW. Last time she was here she knocked an antique plate off the wall and it broke. It has been hanging there forever and how she managed to run into it is beyond me.
It was something I didn't want to declutter.Posted 1 year ago # -
My cats are middle-aged (the vet had the audacity to call them 'senior' cats) and were never very destructive. They are more apt to clutter than to unclutter ... the toy bowl which is full when I go to bed is likely to be half-empty when I get up in the morning, and the toys distributed throughout the apartment.
They are very good at getting me to make the bed, though!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Cats and dogs -- ha! For complete and total destruction . . . er, decluttering nothing beats a parrot!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Well, my cat managed to unclutter my computer speakers last night. How she managed to pull loose the fraction of an inch of cord that was not tucked away so she could chew it into little bits is beyond me....
She's usually quite good at uncluttering anything with a chewy cord - which are usually expensive things, and rarely ones I can really manage without!
Posted 1 year ago # -
mdfloyd: Someone once warned me not to get a parrot, comparing them to a four-year-old with a chain saw. :-)
Posted 1 year ago # -
These posts are so funny! Can you imagine the house of someone with a great dane, a couple of cats, a clumsy mother-in-law, and a parrot?! Also, good to know about parrots. They're so beautiful, but I've always been a bit afraid of them. Perhaps it's not such an irrational fear after all!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Parrots can't help it. Chewing things is the only way to keep their beaks from growing too long. They are also really smart, so they get frustrated and bored by a life of confinement, and as we all know boredom = trouble.
Anything that smart (and with that long of a life span) shouldn't be kept as a pet, IMO.
My cats? I love 'em, but they aren't all that smart. :-)
Posted 1 year ago # -
Check out Bob Tarte's two books on raising tropical birds (and bunnies and cats and geese and ducks and lord-knows-what else) - "Fowl Weather" and "Enslaved by Ducks." If you want a funny take on raising pets and how incredibly inventive they can be at finding ways to destroy things, he's got it. (He's a local boy, so pardon the shameless plug, but he really is an entertaining read if you love pets!)
Posted 1 year ago # -
I have three small parrots and they keep me busy all the time. I have no tee-shirts left without holes in them, all my books have little beak marks on them, furniture with bits chewed off . . . as chacha1 said, they are very smart and just full of curiosity and energy. More than once I've wondered just whose house this is . . . mine or theirs? ;-)
Posted 1 year ago # -
We have 3 beautiful dogs (all female Golden Retrievers) and currently 12 cats. They probably qualify as some sort of clutter all on their own. 3 nights ago one of the cats (a 1-year-old half oriental called Wan) decided that some of the contents of the bedroom mantelpiece needed decluttering. She was so helpful, she climbed up onto the mantelpiece and then shoved several items off. Fortunately the antique vase landed on carpet rather than the tiled fireplace surround, but the tea-light holder chipped the fireplace as it died and we still haven't found all the pieces of the rather nice little abstract cat sculpture.
Needless to say, she was soooooo keen to be of assistance that she waited until 4am to do this.
Posted 1 year ago #
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