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December 12, 2008

Furry Little Scoundrel Bamboozles Me

So even though I'm getting a little more sleep (though Maximus is still waking me up by nuzzling my face then chomping my nose), Maximus has figured out ways to bamboozle me. He's getting smarter and stronger literally every day. I'll give you an example.

We use a child gate to separate Maximus and Gabriel because Gabe hates him and I'd rather not deal with them fighting. Besides, he's so mischievous, you really have to keep an eye on him and the child gate keeps him from roaming the entire house and destroying things without our knowledge. Now, he LOVES Princess. She tolerates him, though she gets annoyed because he constantly pesters her. So she usually will just run away by bounding over the gate.

Well, up until yesterday, Maximus was too small to make it over the gate. But you could see him trying to figure out ways to get over it because he can't resist wanting to follow her. He's been trying to climb it the last couple days and the other night, he almost made it. Then last night, he managed to somehow jump to the top of the gate and get over it. Don and I were eating dinner and didn't realize until I suddenly realized it was too quiet. When we looked around, we couldn't find him. We speculated that maybe he snuck over and when I looked down in the basement, there he was, pestering Princess again. So now, I've added a sort of cardboard extension to the top of the gate so that he can't get over it. Unfortunately, Princess can't freely jump over it either.

Another example...when I put the Christmas tree up, Maximus started climbing the tree. Back then, he couldn't jump very high, but he could just make it to the bottom branches of the tree and from there, he could climb each level of branches. So I put a cardboard shelf on the bottom level. Well, that didn't work when he figured out how to get on top of it. So then I made a wall out of cut cardboard boxes around the tree. Not high enough. So then I made another wall out of cut cardboard boxes, but this time with the flaps still attached so it was higher. Last night, he managed to jump and grab the top of the flaps with his front paws, but fell because the flaps bent back so he had no support.

And now, he's taken to trying to climb the little tree by the piano. The other cats already destroyed the bottom half of it, and I just decided to give up trying to keep him out of it because he's so absolutely fearless and persistent that no matter what I do, he's not going to quit.

I have a feeling that very soon--likely before Christmas--he's going to figure out how to get over the cardboard wall and into the Christmas tree. When that time comes, I'm going to have to take it down. Pretty soon, he's going to figure out how to get up onto the counters and cause ALL kinds of trouble!! NOTHING will be safe! Darn that little IMP!!

Posted by Amy at December 12, 2008 10:18 AM

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Posted by: meat at December 12, 2008 04:45 PM

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