I've been thinking about buying a pet fish for a little while and have decided on a Percula Clown Fish (recently made popular by Finding Nemo).  They're really beautiful fish and despite requiring a saltwater tank, I've heard they're actually not too difficult to care for.  If I buy one (or two), I will need a whole host of other fish tank items, though.  I've read that they form almost symbiotic relationships with sea anenomes, so if I put an anenome in the tank they'll take care of each other.  Also, I know there's a wide variety of tank-cleaning animals (snails, hermit crabs, shrimp) you can buy to simplify tank maintenance and I would love to do this if it will make care easier.

And on the subject of pets, Michelle keeps leaving her clothes in the basement near the washing machine (and 5 feet from the litter box) and is consistently **** off at me when the cats inevitably poop on them.  You'd think after the second or third time she would just stop leaving piles of clothes there, but there was a pile there this morning!  I guess I don't really blame the cats, 'cause my childhood cat used to pee on the rug, in the basement, you name it.  So compared to her, my cats are angels.  Anyway, aside from not leaving clothes on the floor, how else might one discourage cats from disposing outside of their box?

And our dog has started a new habit of wandering into the closet and ruining Michelle's shoes.  Again, this is my fault because I always leave the closet door open to let it breathe (or in case a cat has wandered in there and is hiding).  Maybe I should spray her shoes with bitter apple spray?  Maybe I should just let the dog live in the garage?

I hear that peeing on your cat or dog while it pees somewhere that it isn't supposed to teaches it not to pee there.

My cat (The Cheat) has never gone to the bathroom outside of his litter box, take for the day that Wendy accidentally blocked the opening to his litter box and he had no other choice, then as if to punish himself he just ended up peeing on the cushion that was his bed until that day.  My other cats from when I was younger peed on the carpet, plastic, all over.  Personally I think it is a combination of having just one cat with no territory issues, as well as the fact that the litter box I have is a large box with a cover and a small opening.  There is no way he could get confused about what is and isn't his litter box.  Try a larger box.

Also, that's pretty cool that your closet is alive and needs to breathe.  Does it talk as well?  Does it do any jiggs for entertianment?  Seriously, let a closet breathe?  Um, I think my grandparents would let their closet breathe too, but that is because it had more mothballs than clothes.

How many cats do you have?  How many litters?  You're technically supposed to have one more litter than you have cats (3 litters for 2 cats). 

To me, that’s way too much to clean, so we invested in the largest size LitterMaid.  I feel confident in saying that it is one of the greatest inventions of this decade.

> When you have pets sometimes the only thing you can do is prevent them from misbehaving if you can't stop them from doing it.  This is why I don't have any breakable decorations. :)

Thanks to my dog, Ridley, I don't have any more remote controls. Instead I've decided to start honing my powers of telekenisis so that I can operate all my electronics.

js:
I have the top-entry jumbo litter box that my two cats share.  It's like a regular box except it's 4 times taller and has a lid with a cat-sized entry hole in it.  It really cuts down on the litter tracking because they have to climb in and out of it.  Is the litter maid the one that auto-cleans itself?  Michelle's disgusted as can be with having one litter box -- does a second one have to be in the same room or should it be in a different part of the house?  I'm trying not to make the house smell like cat pee but I suspect that putting 2 or 3 boxes throughout the house might make it smell worse!

Related cat followup:  We had a bunch of wedding gifts piled up in the living room and after detecting a vague odor, we discovered that the cats had secretly been using them as a second litter box for 3 weeks!!!  We had to hand wash every single thing in there and we were planning to return a few of the items, too!

Doug2:
I suspect that they start using Michelle's clothes if I forget to clean the litter box every other day.  If I let it go for 3 days, that's when I start getting trouble.  So that may be all there is to keeping them in the box.  Wolfgang patiently watches me clean each morning just so he can hop in once it's nice and fresh, so I know he at least is finicky about that.

For the clown fish, do you know what the tank size requirements are?  I was thinking of a tank in the 20-50 gallon range.  I think I'll ask my local pet store exactly what types of anenomes, coral, crabs, etc. I should add.

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