We have an artificial tree. One of our cats has decided that it’s a good place to rest during the day when no one is home. Locking her in another room is not an option. I thought about the water pistol method, but she’s pretty smart and would quickly figure out that “people gone = okay to climb tree”.
She’s a big cat and I’m afraid she’ll bring the whole thing down. She climbs up to the halfway point of the tree and knocks ornaments off on the way up and down.
Help!
You could put something bittingly fragrant on the bottom half of the trunk to discourage her, like lemon juice or Bitter Apple, a pet-safe liquid deterrent available at most pet stores and vets, or smelly hand lotion. My cat thinks rubbing alcohol is delicous, though, so I dunno.
I was thinking you could surround the tree with something pokey to keep her from walking near it, but that might just encourage her to take a flying leap at the tree. Besides, barbed wire isn’t Christmasy
I got nothing. Sorry.
I gave up on the cat v tree war years ago and secure the tree with monofilament and put my cheapest balls (insert rude joke here) on the bottom.
They just want to do it-it’s a cat thing-don’t try to understand. 
Get rid of the cat or the tree.
Give up! It’s not worth the effort.
At the moment, we have one of those fiber optic mini-trees, and it doesn’t have a damn thing on it. Sure is purdy at night with all the lights off and just the tree going. The cats still want to chew on the branches, but it’s not so appealing with nothing hanging. Now, I know you’re not going to want to take everything off your tree just to deter the cats, so let me offer these suggestions:
Wrap some string around the trunk of the tree, and secure both ends of the string to the wall behind the tree.
Buy some floor-to-ceiling fencing and put that around the tree.
Search pet stores for some of that anti-pet smelly spray stuff in a can. We have Hartz HELP Stay Off Training Aid. I think we got that at Wal-mart though, so you don’t necessarily have to search pet stores.
Electrify the tree.
Can you shut off just that one room to the cat?
When you aren’t going to be home to monitor kitty activity, secure cat to wall with generous amounts of duct tape.
Or, you can just do as these people did.
Duckster…you weenie…
Gee. Thanks. For. That. Bit. Of. Wisdom. :rolleyes:
As your kitty-kringle is wise to squirt bottles, you might try the bitter apple (my cats & dogs find it delish!). Nothing ventured, nothing gained. As it’s still early in the season, try wrapping/bunching Saran Wrap (loosely) around the lower branches. Kitty may find this unpleasant and find the tree repugnant after a few tries. Then you could remove the wrap and resort to yelling “You are a VERY BAD kitty!!” a few thousand times. My Ragdolls hate plastic of any sort, it seems to insult their delicate sensibilities.
Should kitty continue his/her affection for the tree, anchor the tree to the wall to prevent it going ass-over-tea kettle when kitty curls up for a nap in the branches. This can be done with fishing line and a small screw. (For the tree, NOT for use on kitty-kringle, of course.)
From one cat owner to another, Good Luck!
It’s. No. Different. Than. Some. Of. The. Other. Suggestions. And. Was. Just. A. Different. Way. Of. Saying. “Give”. “Up”. As. Some. Others. Suggested. Said. As. One. (Former). Cat. Owner. To. Another. I. Thought. You. Might. Find. Some. Small. Amount. Of. Humor. In. My. Reply. But. Apparently. Not.
You’re. Welcome. Nevertheless. And. Good. Luck.
Ah. So. That’s. What. That. Was.
Perhaps. A. Smiley. Would. Have. Helped.
Thanks. Anyway.
Enough Kirking.
I don’t like to use emoticons if I can help it and I apologize for the the percieved snark in my original post because of it and the mockery in the second. I especially hate the roll eyes smiley.
Good luck finding a solution.
That’s okay. I snapped a little myself. I apologize as well.
Althought I don’t have the problem of my cats in my tree, they’re usually the type that if something major happens on round #1, then they ditch plans for round #2. I’d be half temped to let the tree go whoosh while kitty was climbing up. And if it didn’t whoosh? Then, what’s the harm with kitty in the tree? What about the fragile decorations, you ask? You have fragile decorations and cats? Whaddya, nuts?
break the cat’s legs.
i’m not a big cat fan, by the way.
but seriously, my girfriend’s cat climbed all over the artificial tree and really made a mess of things.
the next year we got a real tree and the cat kept her distance.
I had a discussion about cats and trees with the lady at the Christmas Tree place just a few days ago.
I’d asked her which trees were soft, as the tree we had last year literally cut your skin if you brushed against it. A year later, I remember stepping on the needles and having them puncture my feet. Decorating and un-decorating was painful.
She said I probably had a blue spruce last year. She said she always recommends Blue Spruces to people with cats. They climb the tree once, then never go near it again.
So there’s your answer. Take your tree back, get a blue spruce, aka Christmas Tree of Death.
Our vet told us that, for some reason, cats hate the feel of aluminum foil.
Of course, he told us this after Thor had climbed our tree, fallen back down into the water, then gone to his litter-box, where the helpfully self-clumping litter then adhered to all his wet fur, turning him into a fragrant walking clay-ball.
But I digress. After the water-litter incident, we fashioned a conical tent around the base of our tree with crinkly aluminum foil (the best kind), and covered it with the tree-skirt.
Either it’s working, or Thor had already had enough of the tree by virtue of being encrusted with litter then force-bathed and chipped out.
I’d love to find a solution to this problem. Last year I cried and said I wasn’t getting another tree (“I just can’t have anything nice, can I?!”) because of the cats’ determination to destroy it. So this year we got an artificial tree so at least there wouldn’t be needles all over the place. And we chose pre-lit so they couldn’t take the lights off.
All went fairly well for the first week or so … a stray ornament here or there, and the dog ate one of the applesauce-cinnamon ornaments I made a couple of years ago (his breath was delightful, I must say).
In the past two days, our youngest kitty has taken to getting on top of the entertainment center and jumping to the top portion of the tree, where it appears he has been napping. Last night when I got home from work I straightened all the branches and hung the ornaments back on the tree only to find this morning that he had rearranged the tree to his liking once again overnight. I think we may have to move the tree this weekend if this continues.
Is there anything you could put on top of the entertainment center (something asymmetrical yet bulky, vs a box that could be climbed on) to block the launching pad?
Our trio like the tree too, but instead of climbing it, they think under the branches is the best cave ever. The most cat-friendly (aka can take a batting without breaking) ornaments go on the lowest branches, since we know we’ll never convince them that playing under the tree isn’t the purpose of said tree.
You know, it must be odd to the cats, though. For no apparent reason whatsoever, your human puts up a thing that looks an awful lot like a tree, or drags in a real tree, in the living room. The timeframe of this closely relates to when it’s too cold for you to be out much (if you’re the adventurous type who goes outside) so it’s really considerate of the humans to bring a tree to you now that you can’t go out to the trees without freezing your paws off. And, even better, they’ve thoughtfully put all these dangly things on it for you to play with! Now, if you could only figure out why they were yelling at you…it’s your tree, and they’re too big to get under it, or climb it, so are they just jealous? That must be it.
Have fun with it! You know it’s going to happen. Cats love christmas time! Put the lights WAY inside so they can’t get caught. Tie the tree to an anchor with fishing line so it doesn’t tip. Get a bunch of wire and wrap the ornaments around the tree branches a few times. Kitties can bat the crap out of them and they won’t just fall off. At the end of the season, you can just snip the wire off. You can use the same fishing line to secure ornaments as well.
to display your nice fragile ornaments in a different area of the house…dining table? Fireplace?
And remember they are worth the frustration. My cocker used to steal ALL the ornaments as far as she could reach. So I just put her toys on the tree bottom.
