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 |
AWESOME!!! No you won't ruin your kitty or cause him to have to seek psychological treatment for doing this. I used a small airhorn while hiding where kitty couldn't see me, but this is much better. I have over 30 pets from fuzzies to exotics and have done animal rescue work for a decade. This really is a great solution as cats will only listen when you are around unless you give them another reason to do the right thing. Great job!! and adorable babies too.
so…do you make house calls?
THANK YOU FOR THIS. LOVED IT
loooooooooooooool. XD hilarious, and i doubt that your kittehs will get stressed, as long as they don't try this too much. ^3^
Hahaha, this was so awesome…
WOW THAT IS COOL to bad i dont have a cat… 😈
Man I really love this!! You fucking pimp shit harder than a giant dick!!!
And great lulz were had
For those saying that this is "cruel", do everyone a favor and never have children if you have such a hard time with discipline. I have had cats my entire life and have only had one cat that just does not care how many times yo push him off the counter, yell at him, make loud noises, etc., he will keep doing it. I was impressed with this method because it seems to actually work. I don't want my cats on the counters for numerous health reasons, but also mainly because I don't want them to hurt themselves by possibly stepping on the stove or knocking over heavy or glass objects on my counter tops. Many common houseplants are also poisonous to pets and you should never encourage a cat or dog to graze on them. Just because it is "in the animal's nature" to do a particular act doesn't mean that act should be allowed in one's home.
I'm going to murder the people who keep spamming the comments with advertisements for prescriptions!
absolutely fantastic work. If you could get the camera to record X frames BEFORE and after the motion detection, your videos would be slightly more suspenseful… thanks for the entertainment!
Any chance you would post your scripts? I need to 'train' our cats as well….
😆 😆 😆 omg soo funny the black cat is the funniest!!!
I especially love the webcam integration using motion. Great job!
That is really neat. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with a deaf and mentally deficient kitty? This is not a joke, she truly is deaf and really slow.
You should come up with a less expensive version and market it to the masses!!!! I NEEEEEED a setup like that! I have 4 cats ages 3-13 and hard headed as all get out.
you're quite an asshole. teaching isn't terrifying at all. :*
BRILLIANT!!! 😆
the black cat is pregnant?
She can abort with the scare. ¬¬
funnist shit i've seen in a long time
Genius! I have GOT to do this to mine now. Damn cat does whatever the heck she wants… "MUAH-HA-HA not anymore!"
This new comment of mine will last only as long as this close-minded individual continues on with censorship. Freedom of speech, freedom of speech. I rescue dogs and cats, puppies and kittens, rabbits and bunnies, birds of all kind, and farmed animals. I was speaking only from experience, and on behalf of all our voiceless friends.
This has to be one of the greatest pet inventions I've seen since the laser mouse. What's funnier than watching your pet make an ass of itself? The only thing that made me laugh harder than the videos was reading the comments; and what's funnier than watching a bunch of up tight kitty huggers make an ass of themselves in a forum where are largely outnumbered. It's comedic genius! (check my spelling, is my grammar ok? God forbid!)
OH CRAP!! I meant "where 'they' are largely outnumbered. That's it, I can never show my gravatar around these parts again… I can't wait to see how people rip on me and tell me what tard I am LOL!! (sorry if I offended any other tards out there, it was not intended)
I Love the idea, passing it on to my uncle who can't seem to keep his neighbors cats off his front doorstoop. Also, to "theTruth" FAIDS, more commonly known as FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus), is a COMPLETELY different disease than FeLV. You are right about both diseases being nontransferable to humans, but they are both incredibly contagious and quite often deadly to other cats. To Plasma and Sarah, I will pass this method, or one similar to it, to my clients at the animal clinic in which I work, who often come to us for that very reason. Thanks for the inspiration!!
😆 Too funny and for all you over board animal rights activists CHILL! What if the plants those kittys are trying to get to could be bad for them? Personally id rather come home to a slightly edgy and confused kitty rather than a dead one.
AS the mother of many cats, I disagree the animals are not and cannot be hurt. The force with which they jump and run can (and has, accidentally) cause them to hurt themselves. I do not believe in hitting, and the water spray is frequently over-done for human enjoyment – I have no problem with using scare tactics, but I throw a newspaper or magazine from "over there" so they have no idea where it came from (I am disassociated from the punishment) – it doesn't have to be a blender to scare them)
Cats are not people. They are are animals we couldnt eat. Thats why their speechless – their animals, not humans. See the difference? I dont think its cool to be cruel to animals, but they need to learn limits and some kind of teaching (aka discipline) has to be in place for that to happen.
That is beautiful. Congrats sir!
Watch out – dont let PETA's kitty harm the environmentalist's plant
My name is STILL on the bottom of this web page :exclaim:
I feel very honored and popular whenever I visit here! Sometimes when I'm sad I come here just to see my name on the bottom of this page and it cheers me right up!
Thank you!
So how many "scares" does it take for the critter to learn not to jump up on the counter top?
To Mary – "AS the mother of many cats, I disagree…" ??? You're kidding, right??? You actually carried cat fetuses in your womb and gave birth to kittens? Was the father….ummm…..wait, forget it, I'd rather not know!
To Stoopy,
You just made my day. I had a good laugh at that! 😆
oooh this is great! my kitty like to sneak up om to the bench and steal knives from the dish rack. weird, yes. something like this might stop her from accidentally cutting herself on a knife-stealing mission. we tried the old "upside-down mousetraps under a towel all over the bench" trick but she thought that was a great game…
Genius…sheer… genius !!!
I do love this. I live in a house with three cats (my wife's cats), and I need a new strategy. Bravo!
I also enjoyed messing with your Christmas tree lights earlier. Very fun. Keep up the good work.
Congratulations. I have lived with dogs since I was a kid, and now I have a cat (accidentally). I have found that its learning speed is much slower than a dog's, and that if the cat brakes the rules just once without punishment, most of the previous learning process goes down the drain. Your vigilant machine will help a lot.
Hey, just wanted to add a personal story to further illustrate why it's GOOD to keep cats off the counter. Im a college student, and last year my roomate and I adopted a beautiful kitten who we named Moth. Moth isn't the brightest kitty on earth, but we love her dearly. When she was a kitten and hadn't quite got the hang of cat personal hygeine yet, my roomate had a lab in one of her classes to take swabs of different parts of the house and then see what kind of ooky bacteria grew from them. Well, guess what bacteria grew from the KITCHEN COUNTER culture? E-Coli. If you dont know what E-coli is, it's a nasty bacteria that is found in POO and causes some not-so-fun gastrointestinal diseases. Not something you want anywhere near where you prepare food. We're pretty sure it got on our counters via Moth's poopy little paws after she had finished romping through her litter box and then deciding to hang out on the kitchen counters…so moral of the story it would have been nice to have a blender defender so we didnt have to sterilize everything we owned.
Ok I am a member of Peta and I still this is a great tactic. I love my cats but don't want their poo on my counter top.
🙄
Ohhhh i hate cats, i will do this gadget but more powerfull and harmfull.. thanks for the idea..!
that is such a good idea:) my cat likes to go into the garbage.. will it work for carbages too?
😈 😆 this is incredible hilarious i should tell my friends that have cats that cant get them to stay off their counter tops of this trick to scare the sh17 outta them 😈 discipline sometimes does equal amuzement 😛 😈
I think this is great! Keep up the awesome work 😉
Hahaha i think you're just doing it for the lols. scaring the shit outta cats is priceless. i bet those clips would do great on youtube.
What is the script used to initiate the blender? Do you have a step by step process anywhere that I can access?
makes me want a cat 😉
I visit this site about once a month, and every time I laugh like it's the first time I've seen it! This is pure comedy (and problem solving) genius. Like Dave Letterman says, "There is no 'off' position on the genius switch!"