What in the world happened here!?

"My Dog Ate My Homework, Miss, I Swear!"

If you have pets, it's generally a choice you've made. Kinda like getting married or having kids, or both . . . or neither, but you get my point.

We love our pets. Dogs, cats, weasles, skunks, chickens, skinks, snakes . . . the list goes on.

We'll do nearly anything for them, up to a point. But when our beloved furry (or scaly) siblings start destroying things we have worked so hard to attain, decisions have to be made.

I built these really cool platforms for our two rescue cats, Buster and Elvis. Buster really loves them. He has claimed the ledge at the top of the wall as his own special place.

Apparently, he doesn't like the way I wired in my surround speakers.

Long before Buster and Elvis joined our family, I pulled lamp cord across the attic to the ledge opposite our TV in the living room and mounted a couple of satellite speakers up there for rear surrounds. I brought the wire out through a hole in the ledge and laid it across the ledge to the speakers. From our vantage point it was completely invisible, which fit the bill as far as I was concerned.

Buster disagreed. His review of my work was painfully clear. Piece by piece, he dissassembled and dropped my speaker wire onto the floor.

Apparently he felt the wire was an impediment that needed to be removed. Maybe he didn't like stepping on it while he played with the toys we tossed up for him. Maybe he just thought it was untidy and needed to be removed, I don't know. He trys to explain, but I don't understand Cat. He shrugs and walks away.

The Culprit: Buster

This is Buster. Sweet, innocent, demon wire-hater.

Buster having fun on the first of the platforms

Buster having fun. No hint of the disaster looming on the horizon. Look close and you can see the offending speaker wire.

The Offense

When I pulled the speakers down to make repairs, this is the condition of the wire I found.

The Solution - Armor

Unless Buster develops a taste for aluminum and steel, I think this will keep both of us happy. Well, I'll be happy at least.

The Final Solution

So, in the end, this is how it turned out. Not bad, if I must say so myself. Not bad at all.

Pet "ownership" (really?) sometimes requires extraordinary solutions to co-existence problems. This is a good example of that, and is, in my opinion, a Thing That Works!