My wife had a cat at our old house and my layout was in the basement of course we didnt have a door to the basement so i built a small one that worked to keep the dogs upstairs. I had o leave a cut out for the stairway that lead upstairs to the 2nd floor, well the cat used to jump up and over the cut out and sleep in one of my tunnels, usually creating a mess until I switched to Dcc. I was called upstairs and forgot to turn it off one nite and the cat did its usual trip to the tunnel, all we heard was the cat making an awful lot of racket seems the 5 amps from the Dcc did the hard part for me. It never ventured down there again, LOL it was kinda funny but the wife didnt think so, I still laugh about it today, no more disruptions on the layout anymore. Jim
Well, when I had Lionel as a child 60 years ago, my 22 pound black cat loved to sleep on the layout. To get his attention to move, I simply turned on the transformer and let 'er rip (without a locomotive). The cat would bristle up and meow loudly and flip his tail rapidly back and forth.
But he wouldn’t move !!!
The bottom line is, we love our pets and will put up with a lot of stuff from them to have them around the house. The difference is, are our cats and/or dogs a part of the family or just another piece of livestock?
My neighbour´s cat loved to ride the turntable (it´s a very large one where the Big Boy fits into)! When he first told me about it, I didn´t believe it, but then I saw it by my own eyes. As soon as the turntable started moving, his cat would walk onto it and stand with all her 4 legs in one line on the track, and then was moved around as the table turned. She seemd to really enjoy that for a minute or so! Looked very funny and somehow also artistic!
Priceless! [:D] There are some good posts on here.
Mike
Back again guys,
I might take away the “kitty barricade” away from the table beside the layout today to see if she tries to make layout landfall again [:P]
She was in there there the other day looking and I walked in and told her to stay off. I think she may have got the point. I figure I will remove the stuff from the table and she will stay off for a couple weeks but then when she “thinks” I forgot she will get back on it.
As a side note, Are there any products that can make animals sick ( eg, ground foam,lichen,clump foliage ) not that she eats it I was just wondering because I know some peoples cats will eat anything. Our cats wont even try to touch people food. The only thing she will eat other then food is sock fluff,lol
Not sure about making them sick, but there are a lot of things that a cat can choke on both on and around the layout. Keep in mind that a cat’s tongue is rough so that it moves food into the throat, making it difficult for a cat to spit out anything it takes into its mouth. That’s why cats get hairballs. They groom themselves, and the loose hair only has one way to go. Even if the cat doesn’t choke on a small part, that part could lodge in its digestive system and cause further health issues.
Kevin