Sue versus Madame Catso

Sue and Adrian had two cats: Mr QT and Madame Catso. Madame Catso’s name reflected her inordinate fondness for food. We had an automatic dry-food feeder that would dispense food for them in the middle of the night. There was a problem, however. Catso would spend most of her waking hours trying to get break into the feeder: knocking it over, biting the lid, clawing at the food outlet. Occasionally she succeeded and we found her comatose from over indulgence. Sue then put the feeder in a cardboard box, tied the feeder to a wooden board in the bottom of the box, and weighted the box down with bricks. She cut a hole in the box for the food to exit. Job done? Over time we noticed that the hole in the box was getting larger and larger. It was only a matter time before Catso was into the box and attacking the feeder again - a real cat-burglar. Sue came up with an ingenious solution: place the feeder on a bathroom shelf six feet off the ground, well out of Catso’s reach. Job done! Except for the one time we left a tall box close to the feeder within Catso’s jumping distance.