Laughing! Yeah...cat's learn pretty quick. Reminds me of the time some years ago, I had just bought the new Nikon SB-28DX flash. My cat was up on my desk and I accidentally blasted him in the face with a full-power manual discharge of the flash from about a foot away. He immediately became "gun-shy" of the flash for the rest of his life.
The funny thing is, not more than about a week later, I picked up the flash and accidentally did the same thing to MYSELF, also from about a foot away as I was sliding the flash into the hotshoe of a tripod-mouinted D1. I was standing in front of the camera,m and as I slid the flash into the shoe...BAM!!!!!!!! Right in the eyeballs! zOMG...those things are bright!