- Poppy is not your usual cat because she’s not afraid of water, in fact she’s quite obsessed with it.
- Her mom tries squirt bottle punishments to get her to stop scratching on the wooden table, but since the unusual behavior remained intact to this day, it did not work.
- The cat falls in love with the spray bottle that she was supposed to hate.
This is a story about a cat who is not afraid of water.
Lacy Findley said that her cat is obsessed with water since she was a kitten. Poppy would stop at nothing to continue her constant search for water, to drink, or to play with. The behavior is not too common for cats, but sooner or later, her family just accepted it as a part of who she is.
“When we first got her as a kitten, I was worried she had some sort of kidney problem but the vet checked her out and said that she was healthy, just weird,” Lacy said.
The fascination with water remained intact until today. The cat found herself a couple of activities that she enjoys. There is cuddling with her mom, watching bird documentaries, scratching on the wooden coffee table but nothing beats her fascination with water.
“She just loves to get a good stretch out, especially on something wooden,” Lacy said. “I keep a lot of different scratching items for her but it’s never as appealing as the coffee table. I frequently catch her scratching the table while making eye contact with me.”
From here on out, it was decided that measures should be taken to get the cat to stop scratching at the coffee table. Lacy figured that even though her cat enjoys playing with water, getting sprayed with it would still be an effective punishment the same way it is in most cats.
This is the part where things went wrong. Poppy had not considered getting sprayed with water a punishment. Instead, the cat particularly enjoyed the spray bottle that she was supposed to hate.
“I thought a spray bottle would help teach her to not scratch furniture,” Lacy posted about her discoveries about her cat online. “Now she scratches wooden furniture when she’s thirsty.”
The squirt bottle punishment for inappropriate behavior would not work on the cat. Clearly, the approach to get the cat to stop scratching up the furniture inside their house would require different methods that Lacy would have to come up with on her own. For now, the spray bottle would just have to be a toy for the cat to play with from time to time.
“I try not to spray with her because I don’t want to encourage it … but she loves it so much that I do it from time to time,” Lacy said.
Source: The Dodo