There was no neglect. Quinn bought a fancy feeder because nerds love stuff like that, right? Cat figured out how to defeat the feeder. By the time she's welding a steel enclosure for the feeder, the story has clearly moved from "solving a problem" to "I'm not going to be beaten by a cat."
neglect as in "not doing" not neglect as in "not caring". I'm not suggesting he doesn't care for the cat, I'm suggesting he's solving a symptom instead of the core problem.
There's no evidence that Quinn wasn't feeding her cat well,
before or after getting the robo-feeder. Many domestic animals will search out food when bored, even if they're not hungry. In this case, I think for both Quinn and Sprocket (the cat) it was all about the puzzle, and the food was just incidental.
Edit to add: despite my disagreement, I appreciate your concern for the cat. My dad's a veterinarian and my mom rescues feral cats, so I've seen a lot of malnourished and mistreated cats. It's heartbreaking how some people neglect the animals in their care. In this particular case, however, Sprocket looks very healthy.
I agree with both you and jdcarter. Is this silly? Sure, but isn't that also a huge part of the fun in having cats in our lives? Everything else must make sense, but not cats. As for "solving the wrong problem" - I'm sure OP isn't the first machine shop welder to turn every problem into a reason to weld.
