I got a pair of kittens in March that I’ve been raising with relative success, I guess. They are nearly identical and I named them Ellie and Becket. They are the average rambunctious 16 week olds at the moment, getting into things and playing a lot. For the most part, no real complaints.
However, I’m having some problems keeping them away from certain areas of my apartment. Each one has their problem area and I’m having no luck in keeping them from it. Ellie (left in the picture) recently realized that she can jump up on the kitchen countertop and does it frequently. When I get home from work, I find things that were on the counter scattered all over the floor.
The problem spots for Becket (right in the picture) usually involve electronics - mostly the entertainment center. He loves to climb into it and slink among the wires of my many electronic components. I’m afraid for both the electronics and the kitten himself if he decides to start chewing on some of them. He also likes to get on the top and put his paws on the television from time to time.
I’m having a really hard time breaking them of these behaviors. I’ve googled just about everything I can think of and tried it all - aluminum foil (they like to play on and with it), spray bottle (deters the girl at the time, sometimes the boy, but doesn’t seem to stick with them), stern "NO!"s that they just look at with curiosity, and even the “No Stay!” spray they sell at PetSmart (the girl pays no mind, the boy finds the scent intriguing instead of deterring). I’ve tried positive reinforcement, as well, where if they’re about to do it but walk away when I say no, I praise them and give them a lot of affection.
I get the idea that one of the reasons they don’t take any of this seriously is that they get in their problem spots whenever they want when I’m at work. There’s nothing I can do to stop it as I live alone and am not interested in locking them into a bedroom or something like that.
Does anyone else have any success in breaking these types of kitten behaviors? It gets frustrating going through this day after day and having it seem like they just keep doing it over and over again. I shudder to think of what Christmas will be like with a tree.
Get yourself some some disinfectant cleaner for the counter, they’ll outgrow the wires and the tree? Well, the tree is inevitable, just make sure you have a very heavy, sturdy tree stand. Mine’s cast iron and weighs about 25 pounds.
I purchased 2 British Shorthair kittens in January (born in mid November) they are Vincent and Jules. There are a couple of questions that come to mind 1) what breed are the cats, 2) if you purchased them from a breeder, have they offered any solutions and 3) and this is BIG, how many cat toys/trees/poles do you have in the house?
Before mine came, I kept telling people I needed a “kitten shower” …it was just like having a child. I had sooo many toys - heck, some I still haven’t opened. If they have plenty to occupy themselves with while you’re gone that will help a lot. As far as the wires, etc. you need to organize that and try to put sleeves on them (check out a home depo in the electrical isle and be creative). Cats will always want to be on top of the tv cause it’s toasty warm…not much you can do there. But large cat trees and swings…tubes they can run through. Divert their attention. I have a friend that bought one of those DVDs made for cats…with birds, etc. and they love it!
Cats on counters/dinner tables…I’ve only caught Jules on the table once and it was a very quick and forceful scoop and drop to the floor. I’ve seen Vince on the counter once and I’ve got 3 spray bottles and he immediately got hit with water. Never happened again.
A lot of it is just kitten behavior and they will grow out of it. A lot of it is probably the breed. BSH are extremely laid back, kinda the labrador of the cat world. I’m assuming you’ve probably already done this…but check with your vet too for some ideas.
One idea I have heard of for keeping cats off of kitchen counters when you are not home involves washed out soda/beer cans, something to seal them with, and pennies. Put enough pennies in the can to make a good loud racket when it is dropped. Before you leave for work put them where they are likely to be hit by a kitten jumping up - close enough to the edge that they will fall and make noise. I have been told this can have two positive results - either the noise bothers the kitten enough that they will stop the action that is causing it, or they will be intrigued by the noisy can and get off the counter to investigate it.
Good luck.
My solution was to enclose a double garage and build the cat suite - I am writing this from my office in the former tool room. My 9 felines have their own couch and recliner, a large crib, and carpeted shelves around the walls as well as a ten foot cedar tree for claw sharpening. The way my home is designed, there was no reasonable way to close off the kitchen. I love my fuzzies but I do not want them on my kitchen counters; I know where those feet have been.
And hurrah for orange kitties - my Yogi says hello! Give them some scritches from Aunt SCL.
Don’t know the breed off-hand, I’m not good with breeds
I got them from a rescue organization but haven’t asked any advice
Tons of toys, I sometimes feel like I have a kid with the toys spread all over the floor. It’s frustrating sometimes because, like last night, I played with them for a while until they were too tired to still run around. Normally that means they’ll curl up somewhere but last night Becket just kept trying to get in trouble. Reminded me of a toddler who was overtired and was doing things they knew they weren’t supposed to do. Of course, he pretty much was.
But do they have somewhere where they can get up high? Cats love to do that, and if you don’t give them somewhere where they are allowed to do it, they will probably do it somewhere where they aren’t allowed. I had some success with keeping my cats off the dining room table by putting a cat tree in the dining room. Now there’s a permitted high vantage point for them to see what’s going on in the dining room, so the table is less attractive.
Has he actually chewed on any of the wires, or shown any interest in doing so? If not, just keep an eye on him when he’s there. If he has, there’s stuff called Bitter Apple that you can get at a pet supply store and put on things you don’t want your cats chewing. It makes things taste bad to cats and dogs.
One thing to try: put away the stuff that’s on the counters. The stuff may be making the counters more attractive to her. Is there anything in particular she likes to knock down off the counters?
I’ve never had any problems keeping cats off of table and countertops. I pretty much just wig out when they go up there. I’m not talking a stern “NO” - I mean GO APESHIT OMG WHAT HAVE YOU DONE YOU BAD CAT!
Cats are skittish creatures, and you want to exploit that. So next time kitty gets up on kitchen counter, jump up, scream, run towards kitty whilst flailing arms and basically act like you just caught him eating a baby.
Make sure you do this while the cat is on the counter, not after it has gotten down. Punishing a cat after the fact for doing something doesn’t work- the cat has no idea why you’re punishing it unless you catch it in the act. This applies to stuff knocked off the counters, too. If you punish the cat when you see the evidence of it being on the counters, you’ll just confuse it.
This does mean that the widely used punishment of rubbing a dog or cat’s nose in a mess made in the house doesn’t work. I heard a story once of someone who tried to train their dog that way. One day, they came home, and the dog promptly made a mess on the floor and put its nose in it.
I’ve not seen it, but I know that either he or his sister are chewing on wires as I’ve found little chew marks on a couple of my wires. Not enough to break through the outer casing, but I want to be really safe about it. I can’t tell if he’s interested in chewing the wires in the entertainment center because he’s literally behind the units and I can’t see him.
Just anything. I usually have them pretty clean, but I left some mail up there (just a couple of envelopes), they were on the floor along with the sponge from the sink and the dishtowel. She found my cell phone charger tucked against the wall and pulled it down. One of them also grabbed my Netflix disc from the top of the entertainment center, got the disc out, and dragged the envelope to another room. They had a busy day yesterday!
I do try to overexaggerate how upset I am when they do stuff like that if only to startle them. They do look startled and then five minutes later are back to trying again.
Get pieces of cardboard, and put double-stick tape on one side. Place the cardboard where you don’t want the kitties–STICKY SIDE UP. Kitties hate things that stick to their paws.
Petco or Petsmart or other pet-supply stores would be likely to have these. They double as scratching posts. You can probably get a good-sized one for $100-150.
Some Bitter Apple might be in order. Are they teething? If that’s the problem, they may grow out of it fairly soon. You should have some toys that they like to chew on (different cats like different things, experiment) so they can chew if they’re teething.
Oh. I was thinking it might be food that they were going for. We learned that we can’t keep bags of bread on the dining room table because one of the cats (we suspect Luna) will drag them down and chew at them. Luna likes bread and cornbread, and doesn’t understand that she’s supposed to be a carnivore.
Is there somewhere that your kittens are allowed to get up on and bat stuff off of (like a coffee table or card table)? You might want to put some toys there for them to pull down. They will grow out of this to at least some degree.
Kittens are going to be kittens. Anne Neville had some good advice about an alternate place to climb on. Doesn’t work for us with Bear (the black Maine Coon in the picture), but he’s kind of a special child anyway.
I’m sure that the lesson they learn is not to be there when they see you. After a while, they figure out there’s nothing exciting about being there aside from the fact that they managed to find a way up there and the view is cool. Then they cool it.
Nowadays, the conversation I have when I see Bear on the island counter is “Hey shithead, you know if she was home she’d scream right now, right?”
He yawns and settles back down, because hell - it’s only me, and I’m a lot cooler about it than that crazy yelling lady.
And frankly, that’s better than nothing. Their not being on the kitchen counters or dining room table when you are there is a vast improvement over them jumping up onto them when you are cooking or eating. Yes, it would be better if they stayed off them all the time, but we don’t always get everything we want in life.
Besides, I haven’t heard of any cases where cat hair in food has ever killed anybody.
Similar idea to the Ssscat posted above - we had good luck using Scat Mats to stop the cats from jumping on the dining room table.
And ours did have a kitten shower. We had a party, mostly to work on acclimatizing them to having lots of people around, and we set a spending limit of $0 - we just asked everyone to bring some piece of junk lying around their house that they would otherwise throw away. It was great - we got leftover pom-poms, half a box of straws (great for teething), foil crumpled in a ball, etc. The kittens had a blast, and so did the people.
I found baby blankets were great for my cat. She loved them, they were soft and felt-like. She soon took to only sleeping on them. I got them cheap at garage sales. Cut down on cat hair too. Just throw one on the couch and the cat would only sleep there. I also found cats LOVE to be high up. If you fix something high, (I fixed a shelf for mine) she would always go there. She loved to be way up high and sleep.
A squirt gun works best when your home. Squirt them when they get near the computer and such. Don’t leave food on the stove, and make sure it’s disinfected so they can’t smell where food was. Try wiping the stove and fridge with bleach based wipes. Cats hate bleach and will avoid it.
Incidentally, this thread illustrates perfectly one of the downsides of adopting kittens instead of adult cats. Adult cats are less into everything and less energetic than kittens.
At least they will be older and perhaps have grown out of jumping and climbing everywhere, at least to some degree, by the time you’re dealing with a tree. Some adult cats might not bother a tree that much, though you should plan for the worst.
One option is to tie the tree in a corner of the room. You put something in the wall that you could tie a string to and that is sturdy enough to keep the tree from falling.
Candles are another holiday item you’ll have to be very careful with. The rule in our house, still in effect with our five-year-old cats just in case, is “Never, ever, for any reason, leave a lit candle unattended or out of sight for any length of time”. We keep all our Hanukkah menorahs that we light candles in in one room (our living room), and someone has to be in that room at all times from when the candles are lit to when they burn out.
Worry about strings and string-like objects (this includes those tinsel “icicles” that some people drape over Christmas tree branches). If a cat swallows one of those, it can cause damage to its intestines, which can result in a very expensive vet bill ($1000 or more), a dead cat, or possibly both. Don’t leave strings or rubber bands unattended where the cats can get them. This is especially true of butcher’s twine or string that has been used to tie up food, especially meat. That’s obviously going to be very tempting to a cat. If you don’t already have a trash can with a lid that you can throw unwanted string or rubber bands into, get one.
If your cat ever does swallow a string (spoilered because this is gross)
and you see a piece of string hanging out of its butt, don’t pull on the string. Pulling on a string that is partly in a cat’s intestines can do serious damage to the intestines. Take your cat to a vet immediately to get the string removed.
