OK, I need help (again).. My kittens are attempting to destroy our (fake) Christmas tree, and making FH VERY angry... At this point, we have aluminum foil under the tree in attempt to discourage them from going under it.. (It worked until last night) I got a squirt bottle this morning that I will start using tonight to get them away. (I really really don't want to squirt them...) It's mostly just one of them... Any suggestions to stop the kittens from eating/climbing our tree? We have not decorated it yet, because we wanted to see what they would do first... Thank goodness we waited o_O
Cats hate the smell of orange. We get one of those orange glow sprays and douse a bunch of twigs, unscented potpourri, etc. in bowls and line it around the tree.
It keeps our fiesty cats away from the tree, even when we dipped out to Palm Springs for a few days last year.
@maplemag: So like an orange scented mist sprayed on the tree may help? (if we can tolerate the orange smell lol).. We have a pine plug-in (love the scent of pine).. Hopefully it doesn't get rid of the pine smell.. Will definately attempt the orange thing.. Thanks!
They tend to hate any citrus, so if you like lemon better, you can try that too :)
@hiroshymatetrastar: Sorry I don't have any advice OP, But I feel your pain - I stopped putting up a Xmas tree and my parents stopped trying to keep their cat from climbing their Xmas tree!
Sounds like an adorable problem to have! Poor kittens. You bring them home a fun toy and then expect their little kitty brains to not play with it. :)
I like Maplemag's idea. Also, there's an item you can get called Ssscat, which works wonders: http://www.amazon.com/Innotek-SSSCAT-Cat-Training-Aid/dp/B000RIA95G
It's an air canister with a motion sensor. It blows a a burst of air when a kitty (or you) walk by. Very effective in preventing my cat from scratching a particular chair. I don't even need to use it anymore.
@sept22insf: Thanks for posting this! I have been looking for these forever!
Opened this because I'm about to put the tree up and I know one of the cats will attack it! I will have to try the citrus idea!
@hiroshymatetrastar: You don't need as much of the orange spray as you think. I love the scent of pine too... That's why I put the bowls at the base of the tree- the cats smell as they're approaching and go the other way. Plus, you can do really cute things with bowls and decorations.
I agree with the citrus idea, cats hate the smell.
I did a Google image search for "Christmas tree" + "Kittens". So cute!
@sarahbabs: we tend to not like citrus at all >,<
@mchitt329: I am determined to have one, this is the one holiday FH allows me to decorate for!
@sept22insf: Hmmmmm Will definately look into it!
@sept22insf: awwwwwwwwww only ours are white with red ears... Here's a pic!
they are MUCH bigger now... I must update my WB pictures!!!
@hiroshymatetrastar: I love your kitties, I always remember what they look like :)
Mine are pretty good with our tree, well they were last year. The scared one hides under it, the other one sits on the chair beside it. I think we got lucky.. but I'm sure now that I've said it they'll be bad this year lol
@hiroshymatetrastar: You are secretly cats! LOL
And as always, your kitties are adorable!
We caught our little girl in our tree a couple times in the past, but in the last few years we've doused cotton balls with lemon furniture polish (Pledge, etc.) and pu them on the bottom branches mostly near the "trunk" of the tree. She doesn't climb the tree anymore unless the cotton ball falls off the branch. She'll still sit under it all cutely.
ETA: I don't actually spray the tree so I don't get any weird filmy stuff on it. I can't imagine pulling it out of the box next year and getting gross waxy junk all over my hands.
Eh one cat just looks at the tree. The little one he loves it. I decided it wasnt worth the fight. He's happy 3/4 the way up the tree. He wacks things but rarely do they fall, and the ornaments are things. He isnt heavy enough to topple it so instead of being mad I just laugh and smile. He's happy nothing is getting hurt so I let him enjoy.Your christmas tree isnt complete without a kitty anyway.
@Lyndzo: LOL this is our boys' first Christmas they are ~7 months old :)
@BeeLadylike: I just LOL'd at work
@sarahbabs: Probably! Thanks, we
@dewingedpixie: FH would throw a fit... Our kitten is trying to EAT the fake needles and the lights (he had to hide the cord that plugs it in because one kitten tried to bite it).. Thank goodness it's only one, or the tree would be down already :-( ETA: Your kitty in the tree is friggin adorable!
I second the citrus thing, my previous cat couldn't stand to be in the same room if an orange was being peeled. But then again, it doesn't bother my current cat.
He loves the tree too... when we were setting it up I gave him a couple branches that had broken off and he went to town chewing those up, but then got bored with it. He just sleeps under the tree now and doesn't really mess with it. So try overloading your kitties with that and maybe they'll get bored?
just on the topic of the citrus... my cat is immune to this. i was juicing a lemon for lemonade once, and not only did she want to smell it but she licked the bowl. :) it's still worth a shot since it's cheap and everything, but don't be too disappointed if it doesn't work.
my cat loves to hit the ornaments off, which has resulted in a lot of broken ornaments. but she's so cute about it that i still keep putting them up. :)
@hiroshymatetrastar: Our kitty nibbled once or twice and was like ok tastes bad and isnt food let me play with this noisy bell instead. As stated my opinion is the items are the tree are things. He's a living critter as long as no one gets hurt I'm fine with it. I find it funny so I figure in his eyes its the world's biggest toy. When we bought the tree I proclaimed it "Buy the kitty's the best toy day". So dunno maybe my patience is higher than your SO's in that regaurd. I always keep the breakable stuff in areas its less likely to fall from like inside the tree. When my daughter was little I kept the glass high and soft stuff low. Its just things :).
@Pinkmoon: OMG love your kitty! So happy to see someone else lets their meow machine enjoy the world's greatest cat toy.
@Pinkmoon: Unfortunately it's a brand new tree, nothing fell off of it :-/
@Pinkmoon: AAAAAAAAAH! Love your kitty!
@sleepyhead22: Shatterproof FTW! We have lots of shatterproofs, and will hang the good ones up higher!
@dewingedpixie: Hmmmmmmm.. maybe... I tend to have a better tolerance for them than he does, he's a self proclaimed dog person... I think he is worried about them getting hurt, our tree has 'lifelike' needles on it, not the mylar-type ones
@hiroshymatetrastar: Oh ok, I was gonna just suggest mutilating your tree by snipping off a few pieces for them, but it sounds like the pieces might be sharp.
New suggestion... My great grandma had this plug in thing for deterring mice, it was supposed to emit some kind of ultrasonic noise that they didn't like. Maybe if the other suggestions don't work, you could check if they make a cat specific one? I don't know how strong they are though, you wouldn't wanto them to able to hear it all over the house.
@Pinkmoon: I'll think about that... I can hear dog whistles, so I'm not so sure how something that makes a 'unhearable' noise would work for me o_O.. But I'll look into it if nothing else works...
@hiroshymatetrastar: So this happened tonight... thought you'd appreciate it! How are your kittens?
I thought this was going to be a thread to comiserate about our kitties destroying the christmas tree. Two years ago, last time we had a tree, our kittens knocked it over almost every single night. We ended up screwing a hook in the wall and tying it to the wall.
Sorry, I don't have any good advice!
Ugh, mine was only 10 weeks old last Christmas (we'd just brought her home!) and thought it was the best possible plaything EVER. My parents's cats have long been sitting in the tree branches looking as happy as anything. We gave up trying to kick them out, and only put breakables on high branches and in very secure spots.
I've never heard of the citrus thing - how weird. My cat actually licks lemon and orange off my hands, so it seems not to be a universal.
@Pinkmoon: I love love love your beautiful cat! My parents have two Siameses who also sit mid-tree and pop out at the weirdest times.
@Pinkmoon: Bawahahahahahahahaha is he stuck !?!?! That's freaking adorable!
@icetea: We don't have bobbles on the tree yet.. And FH would never put a screw in the wall...
@kittyface: Our kittens keep bending the branches
@hiroshymatetrastar: That's so annoying! I know my parents recently bought a fake tree and have apparently had to at least try to get them out because they broke a branch or two (because one of their cats is chubby, ha). Little kitties are so cute but so BAD.
@hiroshymatetrastar: Hehe nope, just chilling. He was hanging out by the trunk for a while so I asked him to please stick his face out so I could get a better picture :)
@hiroshymatetrastar: lol yeah I wouldn't really suggest it. We're "there I fixed it" kind of people :p
@icetea:you aren't the first to mention it lol... That toilet fix is epiccly (is that a word?) rediculous
I think your FH becoming very angry at baby animals is way more of a problem than the kittens wrecking the tree. Baby animals (including human ones) tend to mess things up. Red flag.
@trueblue14: FH has absolutely no reason to be 'flagged'... He has never been exposed to baby anything.. At this point we shut them in our bedroom to keep them out of the trees
@trueblue14: Some folks just don't like broken shit or electrocuted cats. Her SO =/= red flag to me. *shrug*
@Pinkmoon: That pic just made my morning. Even DH liked it. Thanks for posting! :)
And here is my scamp this morning a month after the tree went up, this time the made a goal:
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