Have a cat that won’t stay off your counters? I do. I finally got fed up with it enough to do something about it: scare the crap out of him with a motion-detecting blender (while recording the results for my own amusement, of course).
Confused at what you’re looking at? This is a repeating shot of security camera footage of my cat jumping on the counter – in search of a plant to munch on – and initiating my Blender Defender. Take a look at the following comic to get a better understanding 🙂
Videos
Sorry, but you’re going to have to pretend you can hear an extremely loud blender while you watch these clips
Details
If you were to walk in my house, you may see something you dont normally see in a kitchen. On the wall, to the left of my sink is a webcam (network camera). It is plugged into the network jack and screwed into the wall plate cover, supporting itself. It doesnt get it the way, nor do we ever have to think about it. The camera is being monitored for motion by my computer upstairs in our office.
The camera itself is one of the cheapest network cameras out there, the DCS-900. It can be picked up for about $120 or so. There are a couple network cameras that are a little cheaper, but the D-Link one is pretty rugged and makes it easy to get into the raw feeds, something that cant be said for many other cameras.
As you can see from the videos above, the blender and the strobe light are both controlled by an X10 unit. The unit is sent an on or off command from the computer running upstairs by means of an X10 Firecracker. The Firecracker is just a wireless X10 transmitter that plugs into your serial port. I wont get into explaining it much here, but one thing to note is that is happily co-exists with my CM11A unit.
The computer upstairs is running the ‘motion‘ library for linux. As soon as it detects something moving on camera, it starts recording frames. While it is saving frames, it also initiates another Perl script I wrote that sends an X10 command to turn on the blender and strobe, wait 3 seconds, then turn them off. After the script is done detecting motion, it then splices all the JPG frames together using ffmpeg and saves the resulting movie as a SWF file, which you can see above. Finally, after it saves the movie, I have it set up to email me a link to the movie so I can see the results from where ever I’m at (remotely by using my phone).
Is this cruel?
Of course not! To teach a cat not to do something, it has to get the idea that what it is doing is a bad thing. One way to do so is to sternly tell your cat ‘NO’ when it does something. The cat may learn that it is bad, but more often than not, the cat learns that it’s not supposed to it when your around. This is not what you want. The best way to teach the cat not to get on a counter is to take yourself out of the picture. If the cat jumps up on the counter and is greeted with a scare, it will learn that the counter is not a very nice place to be. The cat is never harmed, but it’s instincts tell is that this may be something to be feared. Just like a vaccuum. The cat doesn’t like it at all, so it stays away.
Some will say that the cat is trying to eat the plant because he needs it for his digestion. In this case, it’s just not true. Our cat doesn’t simply eat our plants. He sees them as a toy. He plays with the stalks, digs them out, etc. We find leaves in the other rooms half the time. And, yes, he does get grass every once in a while.
Project Cost
The table below shows how much money would normally go into a project like this. This isn’t to say that I’ve spent this much, as I already had everything lying around the place, but if somebody else were to start this project, this may be what they should expect to pay.
| Item | Notes | Price |
| Strobe Light | Bought from Spencer’s | 20.00 |
| Blender | Housewarming present, woot. | 50.00 |
| X10 Firecracker | Check Ebay and Amazon if you’re looking for one | 12.00 |
| X10 Appliance Module | You wouldnt want a Lamp Module for this. | 12.00 |
| Network Camera | D-Link DSC-900 | 120.00 |
| $214.00 |
that is 👿 (evil) and could make me 😥 (cry) even if it's funny
i still think it's pretty darn 👿 and still might make me cry after reading other peoples comments.
my best freind would cry to.
🙁 😥 🙁 😥 🙁 😥
😆 I love it! Cats are evil!
That's great. Now, if I can only find a technical method of stopping them clawing at the carpet!
I think you should just replace all the plants in your house with Peyote, so if the cat actually gets by the thorns they will start to trip major balls and go on a psychic kitty experience. They would never even get close to that mysterious plant then.
I love my kitties, but I'd be tempted to do something like this, if it was the only way to cure them of a bad habit.
Before I'd do that, I'd try to find a plant they wouldn't molest. Snakeplant? Cactus?
Somehow, I've been able to train my kitties not to walk on the counter by just grabbing them and putting them down. I guess I have been lucky enough to have smarter or more considerate (yeah, right) kitties? I never keep something tempting on the counter, so they don't get positive reinforcement, if they do get up there when I'm not around. As far as I know, they don't do it when I'm not watching. 😀
This is awesome… I hate cats, so I'm totally loving your videos.
🙂 I love this idea and yes I have inside cats. I wonder if something similar could be set up outside to stop the next doors cat from urinating on my front door!
👿 this was sooo funny
Cats cause cancer. That's a new one.
😮 I'm so glad that I don't live in constant fear of every little thing that could happen to me. It must be difficult. I heard that other humans can carry viruses as well. Do you avoid all contact with them, too?
Is there a device like this for training husbands?
Is there a way to include a super soaker in this setup?
Cats freaking out unexpectedly is quite funny
Wow! Wish I had the spare money/time to put one together…I've got a cat at home who knows that the one rule in the house is "Don't get on the counters or table," but chooses to disregard that on a regular basis. I'd love to see her subjected to this. Maybe she'd finally figure out it's not a good idea!
I check here today 11/5 and I can't believe that my name is still on the very bottom of this website!!! U R so Cooooool! I'm flattered. 😀
Awesome. I wish my cat would stay off the damn bench. You rock.
Coooool! I love it. Thats what I need for my bad kitty
Cats are NOT evil. They are just very independent, but they need love just alike everyone does. My kitty carries on conversation with me, and meets me at the door when I come home. I'm just tahnkful he has never shown interest in getting on the kitchen cabinets.
Hey, Mohsen, since you have nothing to say, why don't you just stop saying it? We cat lovers understand each other — how about you?
this is an unbelievably creative way to teach your cats, and damn if it isnt funny as hell to boot! that cracked me up.. I dont have issues with them on my counters though, digging furniture and chewing plastic are the worst things mine do, and would love to find away to keep that from happening.. 😆
loved it.
LOL LOL LOL !!!
I may just do the same thing.
i saw this on attack of the show…
xD great product 😆
😉
for the comment about training husbands… I recommend a kegerator.
Is there something like this for training my wife to stay in the kitchen?
cool 😆 😆 😆 😀 😀 😀 just 😈 😈 😈
🙂 🙂 🙂 i not lak
Why do you even have the animals then? They shed hair everywhere, you have to clean their filthy litter boxes, they always want to go out etc.. In short, they are a royal pain in the as*.
Too funny. But knowing my cat, she would take revenge somehow. When I was least expecting it.
The deluxe version of this system includes a taser.
30+ years ago I trained my cat very effecively with a weak electric fence charger. I put a plastic bowl of milk with the hot electrode in it with a sheet of aluminum foil under it. It instantly broke my cat of jumping on the counter. And yes, I loved my cat. Better than screaming at it or hitting it, and it was not scared of things, just did not jump on the counter. 😀
A more simple and very cheap trick……place some aluminum foil where the cat get to climb…the noise and feel of aluminum freak them out…
The one with the black cat is the funniest. Put it on Youtube!
To orangedragon(and anyone who may actually believe that crap): Maybe you should actually read up on the falsities you are spewing. FAIDS, more commanly known as FeLV(Feline Leukemia Virus) is NOT contagious to humans… it is a species-specific disease that only infects cats. Nor can you get Epstein Barr from cats. There are diseases you can get from cats(just as there are diseases you can get from dogs, birds, and any other animals you may come in contact with). For those interested, and wanting to be educated on the matter, Google cathealth… it should lead you to the Cathealth website(I can't post the link here, this site won't allow me to)… there is a section on such diseases there.
Stupid me… just Googling the term cathealth won't help you find the website, put in cathealth zoonoses. The first site on the list will lead you directly to the page on the site I was refering to. :red: :red: :red:
Hmm… I'm interested. Would you put up a graph of frequency of activation against time? It'll be cool to see the frequency of your cat getting onto the counter decrease over time.
good guest page.
thank you.
possible negative side effects:
www dot catswhothrowupgrass dot com slash kill dot html
(is your cat trying to kill you???)
Thats awsome! LOL Does it really work in the long run?
Wow, what a cool gadget! But for those of us less mechanically inclined, and not able to spend $214, I have another solution that worked pretty well for me. I left 12-inch strips of duct tape along the edges of my counter, sticky side up. After my cat jumped up there twice and freaked out over getting stuck in the tape, she never got up there again. Cost: less than a dollar.
AWESOME!!! I love cats and even tolerate it when they flop down on the computer keyboard, but there are limits.
😛 Ha Ha, Hysterically funny!
This is hilarious! I wish I had the technical expertise to set up something like this and a larger house where I wouldn't hear the blender at night. I'm sure my own cat would give me tons of footage (he's persistent). You've got a couple of georgous cats though I have to admit I got more than a few giggles out of Puma. As it is, I want to thank the folks who suggested things like the SSScat Cat. Because of the persistance I can't use mouse traps because once they go off that's it until they're reset. I tried sticky tape, post-it notes, and tin foil but my cat is a freak and actually likes playing with tape and chewing on foil.
i have many children and we like many health,
hahaha 👿 😕
I do not have a feline . We have a sweet little schnauzer.
Love you Susabelle.
awesome!
My last work is not good for me see and read it please:((,