Cats & Xmas Trees - HELP!

[Queenie]

This is our first ever Christmas with cats, we put the tree up on Thursday ans I already have a sore throat from yelling at one of them to stop attacking the tree. In fact I actually had to get up and throw her out of the room whilst typing that last sentence! At the moment we're spraying her with a water gun eveytime she does it but the more we punish her, the more defiant she seems to be. Her brother is doing it a little but nowhere near as much as her. She's been trying to pull the decorations down, chewing the branches and now she's trying to climb it.

Is there any way of stopping cats from attacking trees? Maybe something we could spray on it to make it smell bad to them? It's a fake tree by the way. I can't be yelling at her like this every day til Jan 6th!

HELP!!!

 

[Twigs]

sorry for laughing, but I've been there. When DH got me a cat in 1988, we were still getting real trees, he was a baby and we couldn't stop him from climbing it. Then next year we got an artificial one and he was good, but I learned to put ornaments made of plastic, metal or wood on the bottom, so that he could play with them and I didn't have to worry about him breaking something. Fast forward to two years ago when we got our new kitten, Mufasa. He kept climbing the artificial tree!!! He was driving me crazy, I was doing the same things, spraying him etc. I bought one of the sprays from the pet store to deter them, but he seemed to really like the scent!! What I finally ended up doing and it seems to work, is, I bought tulle from a fabric store and I wound it in and out of the bottom branches so that he cannot get into the tree. I got it in green so it isn't noticible. Last year I thought that he wouldn't try climbing the tree because he was full grown, but of course he did, so I used the tulle again. And I still put my unbreakable ornaments on the bottom, so he can play and not get into trouble. We haven't set up the tree yet this year, but I am just going to do the same thing I've done the past two years.

 

[aeryn]

I have 5 cats ranging in age from 1 year to 16 1/2 years. I've completely given up actually having a tree. Instead I hang garland around all the doors and windows and hang my ornaments from there. It's the best thing I can do. The older cats aren't into climbing, but the youngest must be part monkey. All he does is climb. I have a small 4' artificial tree that's fiber optic. I put that up high so he can't get to it and don't decorate it as the lights are too pretty.

Maybe you have to think outside the box and do something other than a tree?

 

[Stephres]

One word of advice: do not put icicles on the tree! When I was a kid, we had lots of cat puke laced with icicles in it before my my parents wised up!

When we had a problem with a cat scratching the furniture I found some spray that worked to keep her off of it. I had to spray it every day or she would be right there scratching the couch and I have no idea if it works with trees or not. Good luck!

 

[becky7953]

When my cat was younger (and much leaner) I couldn't keep him out of the Christmas tree. It actually toppled over with him in it! I then took advice and attached fishing line and tacked the tree up so it would not fall again. Now a days all the cat seems to do is try to eat the artifical tree!


Oh yeah! Icicles are dangerous to cats, if they eat them, they could get wrapped up in their insides (Yuck)

Good Luck!

 

[beavismom]

You can get a product called Indoor Bitter End for training pets not to chew things. It has bitter herbs and some cayanne and should do the trick. We used Tabasco one year, but you have to be careful spraying it or you have an orange circle around your tree. The Tabasco works better, but your tree (and house) stinks for a couple of days.

 

[Lizzy1004]

My cats are finally done trying to climb the tree but they still LOVE to play with the ornaments on the lower branches so I also just put the non-breakable ones where they play and the glass ones up higher where they cannot reach them. aw:
I have another problem though, that being that one of my cats is addicted to any water that is not in his water bowl. No matter how much I try to cover up the water basin on the tree, year after year he finds some way of getting to it and getting water everywhere!!! He puts his feet in it for some reason and then walks all over the presents and lays on them... *sigh* I still love him anyway.

 

[Mom2Ashli]

This is what I am worried about with our kitten. That is why we are holding off putting up the tree.

 

[hezreck]

We spray our cat with a water bottle when she gets near the tree. We only had to spray her three times, and she stays away from it now. That is, she stays away when we are home, who know what fun she has when we are away. I have found some artificial needles on the floor around the tree. But it hasn't damaged anything, so I say what I don't see didn't happen.

 

[grover]

lucky for us our cat could care less about our tree!!
he is a stinker though and he used to use our fridge to get up on the cupboards-knocking the freezer open in the process and thawing out our food.
what i read online is that cats do not like the sound of coins being shook in a can.
so when ever he would jump up there we would get the can and shake it real loud but briefly..it would scare him and off he would go-worked like a charm. he stopped jumping up on the fridge.