My Cat Charlie and his fear of a standing matress

Meet Charlie. He's a lovely cat and loves a good headscratch, or a chase around the house, teasing the dogs.

He's not very popular with me at the moment, but it's note entirely his fault. We're busy getting furniture ready to revamp the spare bedroom, getting ready for some family visitors at the end of the year, and the other day we move a matress into the room and stood it up against the wall. Not a good idea!

The problem is that the spare room is my cats room. It's where they eat, and where they go to the toilet. When we mived the matress in, our other cat, Maggie just walked up to it, sniffed around it, and carried in like it wasn't even there.

Charlie, on the other hand, carried on like we had set the house on fire!! I had him in my arms, and when he saw the matress against the wall, it was as if the matress was a pitbull snarling back at him.

We tried to coax him into the room ti sniff it out, but he wouldn't have a bar of it. He wouldn't even walk down the passage past the doorway to the room, but we thought he would eventually get hungry and go back into the room to eat or go to the toilet. Nope!

Two days later, today, I caught him having a pee inside the cats' tunnel. Not good Charlie!! Not good!! That tunnel is now in the bin, and now the cats playgym has suffered the same fate.

After a verbal exchange with him (yes, he answers back) and a few hours of him sulking, we have had to move the matress out of the room. We'll have to rehome the litter box and cat food as well, so we can get the room sorted out.

It seems Charlie is one of those cats that just can't handle standing matresses. At least now we know how to keep Charlie away from certain areas of the house....