Gardener's Supply Catalog has a product called "Cat Scat". It consists of flexible plastic spikes that are connected like a net. You put it in your garden and when the cats try to step in the garden, the spikes deter them. The catalog says that the product will not harm the cats, just keeps them from stepping in your garden. I don't know if you have a lot of garden to protect, but something like this might work. I haven't used this myself so I can't say how well it works. You could also try one of those motion sensored sprinklers that people use for deer.

To adhmumrgh: You create a contradiction in terms by writing "Cats are not domestic animals, humans have domesticated them." Cats are not domestic. Humans have domesticated them. You even claim to have domesticated a cat. Yet you state that cats are not domestic animals. What ???? ALL home/house/farm/ranch animals were (and mostly are) still found in the wild. This includes dogs, goats, horses, cows, sheep, et. al. Domestication is the process of adapting a wild animal (or plant) for human use. In the case of cats, that use is usually pleasure, companionship, or mousing. House cats and feral cats are of one species (Felis catus). Feral cats are house cats that have gone from domestication to the wild (the opposite direction of domestication), and any of their offspring. So, the great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of a house cat from 10 years ago is still Felis catus, even though her bloodline is largely from feral cats. She is no longer a domestic individual of a species that is largely domestic, and is considered feral. I have a cat that was a house cat (domesticated) that I got from a shelter. I also have a cat that was feral (not domesticated) that is now domesticated. So, counter to your original post, this cat is a domestic animal. Oh, and I domesticated it. As an aside, I keep both cats outside year round. They grow wonderful coats in the winter, they hunt, they anger me when they kill my songbirds, they play with my children, and are wonderful outdoor pets. There's very little I can do regarding their killing of my songbirds. The birds are wild, the cats still have wild instinct, and things like coyote spray, collars (break-away, or not) simply do not work. I've tried *everything* for 20+ years. I now accept, with grace, when one of my cats ceremoniously deposits a dead cardinal at my feed after she's viciously killed it -- it's a gift, and it's a cat. :-) Cheers!

I think a cover is beyond my engineering skills. My meter is flanked by a hose bib and garden hose on one side and my upstairs neighbor's meter on the other (the pic above isn't my meter). It's a whole mess of pipes and hoses. Plus, if the cat jumps on the meter, you know he would jump on a cover, so it would have to be anchored in a way that it didn't transmit vibrations to the meter. Though I like the idea of the cat trying to wrangle with a thorny plant, the walkway is pretty narrow and I think it would interfere with people as well. Sadly.

I feel for you bpath. They can be such little stinks. Some of by cats never scratched a thing, but into adorable Siamese tore into everything. I tried catnip on scratch posts, catnip on cardboard -- you name it. I see a couple of solutions. Along the artsy lines, you could take some strands of yarn and attach them to a sort of header to hold them together and then I fix that to the areas that are already gobstoppers (I spoke the word gouged up, but out came gob stoppers – whatever they are). Then the cats can just enjoy the rest of their days playing with already cut sections of yarn and he could be a conversation piece. Yes, another conversation piece. Or you can take something like plaster of Paris or wax and form a sort of shell over that area - like a cast, but in color. You can paint it or add different colors of wax or clay. I just saw one of these amaryllis bulbs in a clay-like "pot" molded over the bulb. It looked great. I bet something like that could actually look kind of cool along the edge of your couch -- like a molded pottery patch. Then there is another solution.