I recently had a discussion with a friend about webcams, and we both mentioned that we rarely had any use for them… at least, for the usual uses.

We’ve had a problem in the last few months with one of our cats defecating on the floor in a particular spot. As mentioned, we have three of them, and we couldn’t tell which one(s) were doing it, but I had an idea: I went out and picked up a webcam (a D-Link DCS-920) that would connect to our wireless network, and set it up to watch the spot where it was happening, using the supplied software to record it when we weren’t around.

The culprit turned out to be Salem, and we’ve been trying to find a way to convince her to use the box instead. It’s an uphill battle though… the thing that seems to work best is to catch her when she needs to go, but before she actually does, and put her into the box, not letting her out until she does her business. But catching her at just the right time is problematic, so whenever I’m at the computer now, I keep a browser window open to the webcam.

She only slips about once a week now, as opposed to daily before we got the webcam. Very annoying, but she’s almost as stubborn as I am, so it takes time to retrain her. I have hope that we’ll manage it somehow, eventually. If and when we do, I’m thinking to set up the camera to overlook the front door, so we can see who’s there before we open it.

Oh, and the network name of the device? We called it PoopCam. 😉