If you’ve ever been owned by a cat, you’ll know what a charming pest a cat can be. Bored cats and the desks of busy people are (a) inevitably going to come together at some point, if there’s a cat in the house, and (b) not always a wonderful thing for productivity.

My own habit of obsessively hitting the Save button comes directly from an Important Life Lesson taught to me years ago by a fluffy grey tom named Jasper: A quick trip to the loo, then I stepped back into my home office to see Jasper bathing himself elegantly on my keyboard, one fluffy paw planted firmly on the Delete key. Amazing, how fast that cursor raced backwards and up the screen. And simple astounding, how quickly the screen went blank when the cat shifted round at my yell, successfully quitting the program before I could lunge across the room. Gone, the work of a hard three hours — all gone!

Ever since, and to this very day (although this is currently a dogs-only household, and the desk is my own once more) I save-save-save-save-save as if racking up high score on some Video Game of Life. So, a bad cat incident gave me a good habit, I guess… but something like this Cat Perch box (at The Refined Feline, via a comment at Matt Cutts‘ blog) would have come in handy. Apparently it works for chihuahuas and other tiny dogs (under 20 lbs.) too.