Did I mention that meow is very smart and very strong-willed?

About a month after meow entered my life, my friend Carol was staying at my house. Meow was now strong enough to open the cabinet under the sink. He would pull the bottom edge open with his tiny paw.

Since I kept the garbage in a bag inside this cabinet, I did not want Meow to get in there. He could not only make a mess, but he could hurt himself if he tried to eat scraps from the garbage.

My friend Carol got tired of trying to stop Meow from opening the cabinet, so I put a piece of upholstery tape on the top of the doors, to hold the cabinet closed, and Meow was unable to open them.

The next day, Carol called me at work to tell me what my smart Meow did.

He tried to pull on the bottom edge of the cabinet door, but the tape at the top would not let the door open. After he tried this a few times, he looked up. He saw that the doors had this green tape at the top – and he must have figured out that this was the problem. Carol watched Meow leap up and grab at the tape. When he did this, he got his paw stuck on the top of the tape and cried, so Carol helped him back to the floor.

But Meow kept on jumping and grabbing and getting stuck – and Carol kept on helping him get down - until he finally pulled off the tape. So now he had the tape stuck to his paw. So he slapped the tape on the kitchen floor to get it off his paw, and then turned around and pulled on the bottom edge of the cabinet door, and opened the cabinet.

Carol could hardly believe what she saw Meow do. He never forgot what he was doing or why. He could not be distracted from his purpose. He analyzed the problem and resolved it. I could no longer keep the garbage or anything dangerous in the kitchen cabinets.