For as long as I can remember, I've always loved animals. It probably started in childhood. My parents were homemakers, and it fell to me to care for the animals. When I grew up and moved to the city, I desperately missed the energy and love that constantly radiates from our smaller brothers and sisters. So, first I adopted a dog from a shelter, and a few months later a cat moved into my apartment.
While my dog Jack has been incredibly docile and calm since he was a puppy, the same can't be said for my cat, Marsik. At first, I thought I'd brought home a kid, not a kitten: he was pumping out energy 24 hours a day, jumping, bounding, and stealing anything that wasn't laid out correctly. I thought he'd outgrow him, like any child. But that wasn't the case.
When Marsik became an adult cat, he calmed down a bit, stopped stealing from me, and stopped hiding small things. However, his old amusements were replaced by new ones: potted flowers. My cat must have been a gardener in a past life, and now he thinks I'm not caring for my plants properly. It's impossible! In the summer, I put the flowers outside the window, and when it gets cold, I move them to the windowsill. And as soon as the pots of soil appear in Marsik's field of vision, he attacks. He absolutely must dig up all the soil with his paws, scatter it all over the room, and finally, dig up all the flowers and gnaw at the roots. The latter happens when I'm not home, and I can't shoo him away.
My friend's cat didn't destroy her plants; she used them to relieve herself. She broke her pet of this habit by adding peppercorns to the flower pots. I tried the same thing, but my Marsik didn't respond. He sneezed a couple of times from the peppercorns and then continued digging.
Everyone's been writing online about citrus fruits and how cats hate them. I mixed lemon juice and water, wiped the windowsill with it, and placed an orange peel in each pot. But again, my cat isn't really a cat at all, it's a different animal altogether. One time, when he was feeling high and wanted to "play" in my arboretum, he simply jumped onto the windowsill, sniffed it, then grabbed an orange peel with his paw, tossed it out of the pot, and went about his usual business.
I'd given up and was about to give the last surviving flowers to my mom, when a neighbor suggested a life hack that actually worked. You insert a bunch of regular toothpicks into the potted plant, creating a hedgehog-like trap for the cat. I did this with every flower, and when my little Marsik tried to play around, he pricked his nose on the protective device. Since then, he's resented houseplants and avoids them.
