Psssssst = No cats

I have a cat that will sit and glare at me from across the shop while I run my Dry-Cut saw, knife grinder or right angle grinders. I was begining to think she was going deaf, but she still seems to hear me fine when I call her.

She is the only cat I have known that will stay in my shop even when I am TIG welding.

Most cats can't stand the sound of the high freq.

I like to explain her attachment to me, as a little more intense than affection. It is more like stalking.

She is manic about being near me if I am anywhere in the shop or house.

My cats run from the noise, but hide somehwere in the shop, and then get locked in overnight. Verrry indignant when I let 'em out the next day. They usually crap in my casting sand to get back at me.

When I was a kid, I had a toy called a Mattel Sonic Blaster. It was an air bazooka. Now that thing would destroy a cat! Gary Brady Austin, TX

Well my official shop cat (and official cat scan inspector) won't move or even pay any attention to most noises or actions including throwing a big piece of steel within a inch of him on the table. Tonight he was laying on the end of a towel I had over a compressor cylinder. When I went to get the cylinder to put it in the mill I simply threw the towel over him. He never even moved his head for a good 5 minutes. Then he just moved it enough to get the towel off his head. He stayed in the towel for at least 30 minutes.

Now he does move a little when the grinder fires up and he thinks he's might be in the spark trail. But other than that he acts like he's deaf (I know he's not because I've seen him react to sounds I can barely hear). I've even had him stay on the table while I was welding. Within 6" of the weld even. His only concession to my welding was to turn his head away when he saw I was fixing to strike a arc.

The fact is about the only sound he does react to is the blow gun. But even that will only drive him away about 1/4 of the time. Sometimes it takes several blowings of the gun to even get him to get up.

He's also got to be the smartest cat in the world. Anytime I open a catalog or other book he must immediately lay on it.

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

Dunno about "all", but all of the ones that lived in the house with us (and some of the barn cats) were trained to know that a mouth-created "Pssst!!" meant that a projectile of some sort was going to hit them within the next 3 seconds if whatever behavior was in progress didn't alter drastically before then.

Mother was *QUITE* adamant about the response time, and wouldn't hesitate to grab anything at hand to bounce off a cat who didn't obey immediately. Once that meant the freshly-filled sprinkler-bottle she used to shake water on the stuff she was ironing. Made an interesting mess, and I always wondered how she managed to grab that rather than the iron. The cat *NEVER* pulled that particular stunt again in the next 10 years it was with us, though... Up on the kitchen counter or dining room table was kitty no-mans-land, and that was enforced with an iron "Psst!!", followed by a thrown keyring or shoe or apple or magazine or tennis ball or a swung broom, or... :)

Whenever I want to clear my two cats out of my basement to keep them from running outside when I open the door, all I have to do is pick up the air hose. Usually they're gone with the first clink of the blowgun lever. In extreme cases, a short release of air in any direction makes them disappear upstairs for at least 10 minutes.

Are all your cats this way, or will some tolerate the noise?

Well, Doug, had you been around years ago when I married Susan and she still had "Harry the cat" you'd have had the opportunity to meet one that must surely be related to your two cats. I'm a cat hater, although I got quite close to good ol' Harry. I ran my commercial shop out of an attached garage, and he'd hang around for the most part. However, all I had to do was reach for the air hose and he was gone-----rocket like! If I was to judge cats by Harry, I'd say they wouldn't tolerate an air hose for even an instant.

Harold

Don Bruder scribed in :

yes yes, this is the only way to train cats. both our cats are trained to 'stop that' at the sound of a psssst.

they still do their own thing as all cats should, but they can be stopped if needed..... they're both annoying with that cat thignof wailing for the door to be opened, then when you do, they just stand there and look out.

again, the only way is rigid regularity. same with dogs. if you ever expect obdience then you have to enforce every order. that's what happens in wild packs.

swarf, steam and wind

-- David Forsyth -:- the email address is real /"\

Only one cat tolerates the air hose. And she is deaf as a post.

Though most will stand off about 20 feet away until Im done spraying.

"As physicists now know, there is some nonzero probability that any object will, through quantum effects, tunnel from the workbench in your shop to Floyds Knobs, Indiana (unless your shop is already in Indiana, in which case the object will tunnel to Trotters, North Dakota). The smaller mass of the object, the higher the probability. Therefore, disassembled parts, particularly small ones, of machines disappear much faster than assembled machines." Greg Dermer: rec.crafts.metalworking

I had one of those! Loved it. Looked like a cross between a funnel and something from a 50s SciFi movie weapon.

Never could figure out how it worked so well. An air Maser.

I wonder where they all went. I dont even see them in second hand stores

Gunner

"As physicists now know, there is some nonzero probability that any object will, through quantum effects, tunnel from the workbench in your shop to Floyds Knobs, Indiana (unless your shop is already in Indiana, in which case the object will tunnel to Trotters, North Dakota). The smaller mass of the object, the higher the probability. Therefore, disassembled parts, particularly small ones, of machines disappear much faster than assembled machines." Greg Dermer: rec.crafts.metalworking

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I had a cat that my wife swore was deaf, but I would show her not by whispering behind the cat's back to get her to turn around. This cat was a true shop cat. I had to throw her out of the shop when I was welding with the tig, otherwise she would come up real close trying to see what I was doing. She slept on the hood of the Cub Cadet, and I could start the engine and drive out of the shop with her on it, still curled up, her gliding along the hood due to the vibration. I have even cut a little grass just to see if she would get up when the blades engaged. Nope. Once I would remove her from the hood at any point, she would find somewhere else in the shop to nap. The cat I have now has a an open door fetish. If you open any door or lid of any kind, sooner or later that cat is going to be inside the vessel, car or room. She got missing about a year ago for 2 weeks, until one day as I was on the back of the property, I heard a faint meow. It took some searching, but eventually I found her inside my well pumphouse! The sudden realization came to me that I had checked the pump a couple of weeks before and the cat had sneaked inside without my knowledge. I raced her to some water and food, and she was happy. Puzzled by how she had survived, I went back to the pumphouse to take a look. The only thing that I saw was condensation on the outside of the storage tank. Apparently she got her water by licking it. Last week, my wife came home with the groceries, so I helped her bring them in. Hatchback PT Cruiser. The next morning I went outside to warm our cars up before work. As soon as I started the car, a Meeeooow from inside startled me. Damn cat (my wife's name for her), was curled up in the rear seat, cozy as could be.

RJ

"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message news:260120042011206628% snipped-for-privacy@stagesmith.com...

I had to smile at this. I was told the story of a guy who couldn't keep the neighbor's dog from his yard. The solution was to whistle, then shoot the dog with a bb rifle. After being shot just once, the guy would whistle, and the dog would rocket away =)

info.

The hiss for a cat equals an agression signal. So the air hose noise means there is a super-big cat there, angry with them.

Another thing they hate is a gentle puff of air blow in their face. This seems to provoke an atavistic reaction - they think that a predator is facing them up-close and personal, so the reaction is one of reflexive aggression and escape.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

One of my shop cats is tuned to the sound of the UPS truck when he comes for the evening pick-up, not the morning drop-off. If he wants to go on safari for the night he hides in the pallets then streaks out the big door at the best opportunity until....I found that he doesn't like the big CO2 fire extinguisher discharged into the pallet stack. He disappears for hours in kitty wonderland - the factory.

Whenever I want to clear my two cats out of my basement to keep them from running outside when I open the door, all I have to do is pick up the air hose. Usually they're gone with the first clink of the blowgun lever. In extreme cases, a short release of air in any direction makes them disappear upstairs for at least 10 minutes.

Are all your cats this way, or will some tolerate the noise?

To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@" Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.

Doug, I have two cats with very different personalities. One (MC) runs when I use the air hose the other (Storm) just stares at me. MC will just sit and nap when I am using the Chop Saw and Storm runs. Storm wants to be by my side all the time. However, I have not been able to find a welding helmet that she will wear. ;-) They all get locked out of the garage when I weld.

Michelle

Doug Warner wrote:

most cats, dogs and other animals will run when frightened and this is what happens when you hit the air hose.. bet if someone was behind you with a 9 mm firing it you would also run(its the same to them).....

One of our dogs gets really agitated when he hears the Stone's "Sympathy for the Devil". Our theory is that it's the maracas, since the dog has been trained that rattlesnakes are a big deal.

Wayne

They grew up and became AirZookas! I got my kid one of these last year for about $15 and our cat takes off as soon as he sees anyone reach for it. It stores energy in a piece of shock cord, similar to a slingshot. Nice injection molded plastic multipiece design, enabling it to ship as separate parts in a pretty small box, easily assembled when you get it. If I hadn't sworn off those damn butts eight years ago I'd puff some smoke into it and see if it shoots a big vortex smoke ring across the room.

See this page, they've got videos of them in action