. . . when you have a smarty pants cat that likes to get attention (cat in question not shown in picture).
TheAnnabelle can be quite the attention hog when she wants to be. If she's not getting the attention she wants, she figures out a way to get it. Her favorite way of getting attention when we are in the office (kitties aren't allowed in there) is to get in the linen closet and shove things out.
We used to leave the door open because we (meaning I) needed to get in there often throughout the day (it's where all my medications & supplements live), but when TheAnnabelle decided the best way to get our attention was by shoving all the towels onto the floor we started leaving it closed. It didn't take long, a few days really, to figure out if she applied pressure in just the right spot that she could get the door open and shove the towels on the floor.
So then we started putting a jug of water in front of door. It was heavy enough to keep the door closed, but I could easily push it aside with my foot. Again, that smartypants TheAnnabelle figured out how to get past it. She would tip it over and roll it out of the way so she could pop the door open and shove the towels all over the floor.
So we moved the towels to a higher shelf. Now the girl can jump, but she couldn't quite make the new shelf the towels were on. We (meaning I) figured that after a couple of times of not getting to the towel shelf she would give up. Oh, but not TheAnnabelle! Nope, she figured out that after she rolled the water jug out of the way and popped the door open, she could use the supports on the back of the door as a ladder to get up to the shelf she wanted and shove the towels all over the floor.
That brings us to the above picture. Yup, we have a wooden t.v. tray leaning against the door to keep her out. Sure she's already figured out that she can knock the thing over if she wants, but it makes some noise and scares her a little (it scares TheDexter a lot, so really that's a bonus for her). And when it's down it's still in the way and won't let her pop the door open. Now she waits for me to forget to put the t.v. tray back (which happens more than I'd like to admint) when I'm done in there so she can pop the door, use the supports on the back of the door as a ladder to get to the shelf she wants and shove the towels all over the floor.
It's a little game we play now. Yeah, I know, she's winning.
(note: TheDexter is in the above picture because he can be a bit of an attention hog at times too.)
