Since it's Friday I thought I would post a little bit of frivolity.

This is my latest acquisition - he's 13 years old (a bit of a touchy story since we thought he was 16 and old and frail - how wrong!).  He was my mother-in-law's cat - and as this picture shows, he has got a very bad habit.  Yup he's spent the last 12-13 year's drinking his water straight out the kitchen tap.  So, for some people (like me) this is an absolute "No! No!" -  Bad cat! Get down! Now!  I said, Now!   And for other's it's -  well, you know, not the end of the world, it could be worse - at least he use's the litter tray when he needs to go......

So we've spent the last few weeks trying to break the habit.  After 35+ years of cat ownership, I thought I'd learnt a thing or two.  He is teaching me that a) Knowledge and application are not the same thing; b)patience is a virtue; and,  c) bad habits can be so ingrained even the thought of the punishment doesn't break them.  He shut his eyes and ignored the water spray.  He turned a slightly deaf ear to the slap of the towel on the side next to him.  He splashed water out of the drinking bowl, covering everything in water for a 2m radius around the bowl. 

I guess there are some lessons in there we can all learn from.   This could be an analogy for guesstimating salaries, misogynistic management or any other not so great reward and HR practices we encounter.  But really, it's just a note to me to remember that at only 13 years old, I could have another 5+ years of cajoling and threatening, and still not convince this monster to drink out the water fountain.

Oh, and he has established himself as the reward specialist, helping the other cats articulate their need for rewards - He turned his nose up at cat treats (which they then ate),  cat milk (which none of them liked),  and he did like the catnip but only if you put it on a shelf off the floor (where the others couldnt get to it).

I need chocolate!  - a bad habit I should give up perhaps?

p.s. have you succeeded in breaking any bad habits lately?