This is the story of the cat who turned on the water . . .

Marlo loves to drink water from the bathroom sink faucet. Almost every time we walk past the bathroom, Marlo comes running. No doubt eager to get a fresh drink, he jumps up on the counter and proceeds to vocalize his enthusiasm until we turn the faucet on. A while ago, Robert and I mentioned how great it would be to come up with a way to have Marlo turn on the water himself.

I got home from school on Monday and, to my great surprise and excitement, discovered that Robert had installed the solution! Apparently he'd been working on this project for a while, and had managed to keep it a secret from me. The photos below show the progression of the installation.

Here we have the sink before any changes were made:

First, Robert installed a new faucet:

Then, came the placement and installation of the motion sensor. When triggered, the motion sensor turns on the water for 1 minute as long as it senses something in front of it:

Here, Marlo is checking out his new device:

On Monday, Marlo mostly stayed away from the sink. Robert tried to lure him to the sink with treats, but if Marlo isn't ready to explore something, he won't come. Then after a while, Marlo decided he was thirsty and tried his usual tricks to get us to turn the faucet on. We were happy that he wasn't scared of the new contraption. There have been numerous times since Monday that he has triggered the motion sensor, which turns on the water, and he helps himself to a refreshing beverage. I don't think he's quite figured out that he has the power to turn it on himself, but we've heard the water go on when we've been in other rooms in our home. He's a pretty smart cat, so we're both confident that he'll figure it out soon!

It's been fun to see Robert in his "engineer" mode. He's clever at figuring out how to make such things happen. I really enjoy seeing his enthusiasm and creativity and enjoyment in his projects.

And, I appreciate that he loves Marlo too!