Ginko reigns as the undisputed sofa captain at Chez Champion of My Heart, but last week, in preparation for holiday guests, I washed and hung out the garage sale comforters that typically cover our furniture while Tom did a thorough upholstery cleaning. That meant our big boy suffered an entire day without piloting the love seat. Check out our ghetto scat mat (as Elayne at Days of Speed is fond of calling homemade solutions). Two words: Bubble Wrap
{photos missing from blog glitch. sorry}
Tom simply tipped the cushions up and covered the flat surface with bubble wrap. His thought? Big dog butts and pointy Ginko toes would pop the bubbles and make enough noise to keep him off for the day while everything dried.
Loyal readers know I’m not a fan of aversives in general, but it really did no harm. And, it worked, and even if a couple of bubbles popped (I didn’t hear any), it didn’t seem to freak Lilly out.
When things were finally dry, and after I returned the protective comforters, Ginko hopped up and sacked out for hours and hours. He looked so tired. I felt terrible, but a few times of year, we do enjoy seeing our furniture in its natural state.
This wouldn’t work in my house, since I’ve taught Marge to step on bubble wrap and and jump on it and pop all the bubbles. She likes it, and I figured it wouldn’t be bad for sound desensitization.
What an ingenious use for bubble wrap! I’m not sure what Java would do. Her favorite spot though is laying in front of the floor to ceiling front window. Unfortunately, her lunges to bark at the squirrels and bunnies going by have left some big scratch marks on the woodwork.
Oh, and the deleted comments on my blog, spam to sell stuff and covert links (I think they get money every time you click the link), mainly from other countries. So I’ve turned on the requirement to type the scrambled word to see if that stops it. Unfortunately, I had turned that requirement off because some people were having trouble commenting. We’ll see what happens.
R is a similar diva, only about our bed. Our bed is the only furniture that he’s allowed on but, occasionally, we have to change the sheets, requiring him to stay off it for 15 minutes or so. You’d think that I’d thrown him out on the freezing cold deck based on his hystrionics.
I think that he and Ginko have similar Diva complexes!
Oh, poor Ginko – what an exhausting day, not being able to sack out on the sofa. I love the ghetto scat mat, though – genius! Although, like Elayne’s Strummer, my dear departed S dog thought that bubble wrap was an excellent toy. Actually, pretty much everything that he ever considered to be a fun toy were things that were never intended to be toys.
I’m afraid if I tried something like that that Strummer would start popping the bubble wrap on purpose. Then when it was all popped he’d eat the plastic. Sigh.