My cats hang out in their carrier

One of the last things I do before going to bed is to take all of the cat toys that make noise and lock them into the cat carrier. Between doing this and turning my air filter up to top speed, when its fan produces a sort of white noise, I am able to sleep through the night without that cats waking me as they frolic. In the morning, I unlatch and open their carrier's door, leaving it to them to retrieve what toys they want to play with. My hope is the cats will see the carrier as their toybox more than as the path to the vet. Several times I have seen Shadow disappear into the box and reemerge carrying a toy, so I think this is working to a degree.

Of course, when I need to carry the cats somewhere in their carrier, I remove it from its usual location by my bed, empty it of most of the toys, and place it in the middle of the floor, which may offer its own cues as to its immediate purpose. From time to time I place the carrier in the middle of the floor and just leave it there, to reduce the validity of that cue, but I tend to leave the toys in place.

The result, and this is probably more due to the cats' sweet nature than to the dual identity of their carrier/toybox, is that I rarely have any difficulty in getting them into their carrier.

Then last night I collected the noisy cat toys and knelt down to place them into the carrier, but in placing my hand into the carrier I immediately encountered a warm, furry face. Shadow was lying in the carrier, stretched out and relaxing, and a closer look showed Scruffy in the carrier as well.

:)