Poppy has a complete obsession with water and has been since she was a kitten. She’ll do whatever to get to it so she can play with it and drink all day, and although her family first didn’t understand her addiction, they now accept it as a part of who she is.
Poppy’s mother, Lacy Findley, told The Dodo, “When we initially acquired her as a kitten, I was scared she had some type of renal disease, but the doctor checked her out and stated that she was okay, just unusual.”
Poppy is now 10 years old, and her love of water has never faded. Besides her constant search for water, Poppy also loves cuddling with her mom, watching bird documentaries and, of course, scratching on the wooden coffee table.
“She just loves to get a good stretch out, especially on something wooden,” Findley said. “I keep a lot of different scratching items for her but it’s never as appealing as the coffee table. I frequently catch her scratching the table while making eye contact with me.”
After considering many options to stop Poppy from scratching the coffee table, Findley chose to use a spray bottle as a possible solution.
She assumed that even though Poppy was being sprayed with water, she would still be unhappy and cease clawing at the coffee table as a consequence. However, Poppy was unable to resist the water even in the shape of the spray bottle and fell in love with it right away.
“I thought a spray bottle would help teach her to not scratch furniture,” Findley wrote in a post on Facebook. “Now she scratches wooden furniture when she’s thirsty.”
Clearly, spraying Poppy is not an effective way to get her to stop scratching the furniture, so Findley has mostly given up on that technique — but she still lets Poppy play with the spray bottle from time to time.
“I try not to spray with her because I don’t want to encourage it … but she loves it so much that I do it from time to time,” Findley said.
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