Jo Firey wrote:
"Rhino" wrote in message
.. .
My cats occasionally try to mooch human food from me. For instance,
if I'm eating a TV dinner in the living room, they will approach,
sniff, and occasionally try to snag some tasty morsel from me.

If I tell them to keep away in my "no!" voice, it doesn't have much
effect. However, I've found that if I hiss at them, as much like a
cat as I can manage, Bebop will stop immediately. Samba is not so
easily deterred by the hiss but can be dissuaded by gently pushing
her away.

I'm just curious whether anyone else has ever tried hissing at their
cats to make them stop doing something and what, if any results, you
got?

I'm pretty much convinced that a hiss from one cat to another means
"Back off!" - no more, no less - and it works very well on Bebop. If
he's bugging me while I'm trying to sleep, hissing works very well
on him. Unfortunately, Samba is not quite as attentive to hisses -
at least not mine! Then again, she's also pretty feisty and isn't
shy about ignoring Bebop's hisses when she wants to. Maybe she's
just employing a little selective deafness with me too :-)


It works on dogs too. And is not as annoying to everyone else as
yelling No! at them.

(Or maybe just on dogs that are "cat broken")

Jo

I wonder if it would work with small children. ;-)