Communications from cat tend to be along the lines of: I'm hungry, or in most cases, I want attention (play/stimulation).
Past objects observed: Keyboards, houseplants, pens & pencils, kitchen area counter and anything on it, pet ants, rock and fossil collection.. the list goes on.
And related to cat areas, the secret that I've found was to never rely on buying fancy cat furniture but rather making a unique spot for cat every few days. Blanket for comfort, areas always in sight range of the work desk but not in it (to be distracting for work). Bonus points if you visit and pet cat when they're sleeping in those spots to reinforce that this is their spot and all is well with safety and comfort.
And same for toys, makeshift toys are cheaper and more effective than overpriced pet store shenanigans (Eg: elastics, pieces of string tied together, sandwich bag clips, small bouncy toys). The secret there is also reinforcing playtime with those toys by simply playing with cat!
Edit: written with cat at arm's length distance in makeshift bed in a chair~
- McDonald's paper straw
- Bird feather from outside
- Empty toilet paper roll
- Shoelace
- Strap of Velcro
- Bottle cap
Lil'shit knows this is not allowed, on a tabletop she's not allowed upon, no less!
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I'm not a cat person and somehow have inherited a black kitten from each parent.
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At least she didn't curl up napping upon my Apple Silicon (thankfully kess attractive than older Macbook AMD GPUs)... that's when I know I've actually fucked up #catWorld
I also felt that it was probably good for me for her to break my flow and demand my attention every now and then. It helped remind me to get up and stretch and be human better than I otherwise would have done.
to be fair, the page was probably arranged in a nice sunny spot at the time of the incident.
Although my last cat was nicer and slept between the keyboard and monitor. Pushing aside every small piece of crap that I kept on the desk of course (had to regularly gather sd cards that she pushed off the desk) but at least she let me see and type!
Meanwhile, the cardboard box you have forgotten to take to the recycling for three weeks will become their palace.
There is definitely an attraction aspect related the "freshness" of the box, as there are squabbles over which cat gets to use the new box. These squabbles wane over time, until the new box arrives.
I have a USB keyboard and external monitors, so the laptop sits off to the side, and is warm, so they loved to sleep there. Particularly a problem since it also has a button that powers off the laptop. I made a keyboard cover, but even then it was problematic with them sleeping on it (thermal throttling).
Putting a box on the desk solved that, they prefer it, until a second cat wants to join the party, which is thankfully rare.
Also, their brown paper filler is loved by my cat. He doesn’t like Amazon packaging paper, but is all over Chewy paper. I wonder if they add a scent.
The cats demand to be on top of the desk, within attention reach at all times.
Pro tip: even big cats love to lay in the top cover of a printer paper box. You can adorn the outside, but keep the inside plain smooth cardboard as they are extremely fond of that feel.
The can was always at arms reach for scritches and cat debugging.
I agree with other commenters that this has about 99% chance of being ignored in favour of your keyboard, though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/b1tay1/the_decoy_keybo...
Maybe the desk really is designed for people who work at home, if their job is cat photographer.
None of them would use the desk. But they really enjoy their cameos in my Teams and zoom calls. And when I am not at my desk, when I am closing my laptop for the day, they instantly enjoy flopping down on the still warm machine.
Had to move my browser up to see what I am typing.
Yeah… If you're of a typical Japanese length. My knees appreciate all the space they can get, and that very much includes the bit of 'unused space' where a cat can go in the article.
(Living in Japan as a student really made me feel like a two metre tall giant at times. Classroom desks at Japanese universities were universally too small.)
Something like https://desknest.com seems much more likely to work.
"Normally unutilized"? This is where the drawer goes. Otherwise, it's just a glorified table, not a desk.
And my cat sleeps behind the laptop anyway.
You also can't use the keyboard and trackpad on your laptop. You must be provided with a separate keyboard, mouse/trackpad/trackball and a monitor. Working on your laptop is for emergencies or very brief tasks.
[1] https://soranews24.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/03/ch...
I mean they don't even smile like a dog. They look miserable most of the time!
It's like an abusive relationship where nothing you do will please them LOL
Yes, I'm a dog person ;)
There must be something to the toxoplasmosis theory
