I've been working with animals for a very long time. Maybe one of these ideas will work for you: 1. Uncrinkled sheet of heavy aluminum foil - cats hate the sound 2. Upside-down mouse traps under a little newspaper or tea towel is best, but not necessary. They fly into the air & scare the crap out of the cat. UPSIDE-DOWN ONLY for obvious reasons. 3. Carpet tack strips - nasty points aren't nice to step on 4. Ssscat brand spray head goes on canned air & uses infrared sensor to spray air when cat is near - sound alone works, but for stubborn cats, you can point it at them. 5. Set a shallow dish or lids of water on soil surface - cats hate wet feet. Add rubbing alcohol for unpleasant odor and sensation in eyes & nose. 6. Rolled up balls of masking or duct tape - even more annoying to have stuck to them than just double-stick tape. Tape balls stick and follow them around. Only trouble is the cat might pee somewhere else in its panic to remove attacking tape balls. 7. Bamboo skewers or dowels stuck into soil to form a fence, or stuck at all different angles so they're very uncomfortable to squat or walk in. Bag of 100 for $2 in Walmart kitchen isle 8. Scat Mat gives static-like shock - from Foster & Smith or any online pet store, maybe even PetSmart. 9. Infrared-triggered noise maker. Some are sold for this, but one of those cheap infrared doorbells or buzzers from Amazon that little shops use instead of a bell on the door will only cost $5-$10 & is good enough for most cats. Will also alert you to bad behavior so you can squirt kitty if noise doesn't do the trick. Soak some corn starch in Bitter Apple, Bitter Lime, Fooey (best) or other bitter product. Let dry. INSIDE A SEALED BAG, break it back into powder. Put 1/4" corn starch on soil surface & top with thin layer of horrible, bitter powder. When cat disturbs powder, bitterness gets in mouth & nose & (s)he will never go back. Save this as absolute last resort because it is unspeakably horrible. It works, but you can't avoid enjoying a bit of it yourself while making and cleaning it up, and when the cat disturbs it and later tracks it around the house. Every now & then some tiny bit will waft up from somewhere and you'll be gagging and spitting for half an hour. Your cat might also not want to bathe itself when it gets the horrible, bitter crap in its fur. Trust me, every other option is better than this one. For details, more help, or more ideas, email me through the site.

What about Gulf Frit cats? I moved several cats of different sizes from the P. Incense, which they had eaten to a nub, to P. Incarnata, but apparantly they all crawled away. No leaves have been eaten on the Incarnata and no cats can be found. What the Gulf frits really seemed to prefer this year is P. Foetida which surprised me as it's not listed on the FAQs page. I had a few on it last year, but this year it hasn't gotten to the same large size since the cats started early to eat it down. Are Gulf Frit cats more particular? I have lots of Frit butterflies in the yard so I hope they find the Incarnata soon, but I'm wondering if the females prefer to lay eggs on the same kind of Passi that she used as a caterpillar.

What area of MO do you live in, Crittergirl? I'm kinda familiar with Missouri, since I'm originally from SE Kansas, and now Oklahoma. We are getting lots of Pipevines this year, too. Heck, we're getting lots of butterflies, period! Congrats on your PVS cats - they're such gregarious lil things. I think that if you check our vendor list here, there are several mail-order sources for different pipevines. In our area, Aristolochia tomentosa, A. macrophylla, A. serpentaria, and A. clematitis do the best. The first 3 are all natives. A. clematitis is of mediterrania origin, but it works just great. It's not a vine, and I think it gets about 2'-2.5' tall. I'm finding that pinching back my pipevines really helps to stimulate new growth on them. Susan

Five was way way too many. This was because two cats were dumped off at me when I already had three. The owners were friends who couldn't move into their new housing with their cats (they were foreclosed out of their house and had to move to an apartment that would work for their autistic daughter - but alas allowed no pets). I wanted to move the cats to a no-kill shelter, but there was a three plus month waiting list. So, I kept them. It was way too many because the first three and the second two did not REMOTELY get along. Ever. I tried everything. Okay, Serenity (my oldest cat at nearly 17.5 years) would, and still does, get along with everyone -- but the other four??? Naw. I had to keep some in the basement, some upstairs. We all hated this. At the moment, I have two cats. Three would be fine at a maximum, but they all have to at least tolerate each other!!!!