What a little determination will do

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Since summer is rapidly approaching we decided to get the screen door fixed. The tape wasn’t working very well and the hole had gotten bigger (thanks to Hurley and Pippi sticking their heads through it) Jack was able to squeeze through the hole with no problem. He originally made the hole because he wanted the bag of bird seed that was outside, near the screen. So he picked a hole in the screen and pulled the bird seed bag through the hole, making a giant mess. When I found him and the mess he just looked at me as if to say "yes? Is there a problem?"

It was SO nice not to have a hole anymore. There was no need to worry about the duct tape covering the hole, it was wonderful. We agreed that we wouldn’t leave the glass door open without one of us supervising. We weren’t going to leave the glass door open unless one of us was in the room. Even if we went upstairs we shut the glass door, because surely Jack couldn’t pick a hole in the screen if we were WATCHING. But Jack is smarter than us, and apparently much craftier than we give him credit for.

I came home from work one day last week and Bob said “JACK DID IT AGAIN” Bob was sitting here at the computer and he heard the sound of screen ripping. He jumped up and between the time he jumped up and ran across the room Jack had ripped a new hole in the screen. Apparently Jack was so focused on the task at hand that he didn’t even look up as Bob ran across the room, yelling at him while spraying him with the water bottle. He was far too engrossed in his project to care about being sprayed in the face with water.

Everyone gives me advice on what I should do to ‘train’ Jack. The problem with Jack is he’s not afraid of anything and he doesn’t care. If he wants to do something, he’s going to do it. He’s an opportunist, he’ll just wait until we aren’t paying attention or we’re not home. He follows me around when I vacuum or steam clean the carpets, he’s INTERESTED in what I’m doing. He’s not scared of the vacuum cleaner; he wants to know how it all works. All the other cats scatter and hide under the beds…not Jack. The door bell rings and everyone scatters, but not Jack. Jack sits at the top of the stairs and greets everyone as they enter. He flinches when I spray him with the water bottle but he doesn’t STOP what he’s doing. Every once in a while he’ll walk away and find something else to do, but eventually he goes back to whatever it was he was trying to do. He doesn’t forget, I think he figures *I* will. I really believe he just decides to go back to it later, when I’ve forgotten because he WILL go back and try again. The whole screen thing was the perfect example. We saw him inspecting the screen. We KNEW it was a matter of time. We just assumed that we could prevent him from doing it if we were in the room. We underestimated him. It’s almost like he had one claw out like a razor blade and quickly made his move like a surgeon.

So now we’re right back to where we started…putting duct tape over a hole in the screen. *Sigh*