My Son's Cat, the Rebel

Lily

My son, who lives with me, has a rescue cat named Lily. She's a pretty cat and tolerates being cuddled reasonably well. I talked about her before.

But she has one trait that drives me nut: she scratches the carpet and sometimes the furniture. And she knows she's not supposed to do it because when you tell her to stop, she does, and when you see her, she looks guilty. We try to spray her with water whenever she scratches. And she looks at you, ducking her head as if to anticipate the spray.

So, obviously, she knows she's not supposed to scratch the carpet or the furniture. But she does it anyway.

And she has things to scratch on and we praise her when she does scratch them and not the carpet or furniture. Once, recently, she was scratch the carpet right next to her scratch pad.

I can't figure why she does what she knows she's not allowed to do. Why does she try to get away with it. Is it because at night when we're asleep, she can get away with it? My wife says she probably doesn't because she misbehaves to get out attention. But when we give her attention, she gets all aloof and acts like she doesn't like it.

She has other habits, too. She tries to open cupboards and go inside. We try to discourage that and we've resorted to baby locks on some of the cupboards with dangerous things in them (such as under the kitchen sink).

And, like a two-year-old child, you're just ready to strangle her, and she looks at you and does something cute.

Talking with other cat owners, this is apparently typical cat behavior.

Do you have an animal? Does it have a rebellious streak? Tell me about it in the comments below.