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Rampaging cats
Asiina
...WaterlooRegistered User regular
...WaterlooRegistered User regular
So I have these two cats. The cats are loving and nice to me and each other. They never bite or scratch me, or complain. They like to sit on or near me all the time and knead against me and it's just the cutest thing. We play together with pieces of string and this sort of fishing line with feathers on it. They're pretty great cats.
Until I'm not around.
Often I'll come home or wake up to some sort of disaster area. A roll of toilet paper or paper towel will be shredded and all over the house, the front door carpet will be bunched up in the kitchen or dining room, there's a high chance that something is broken. When I had the Christmas tree up, I couldn't decorate it until the last few days since they broke at least a couple of baubles and bent the tree every day. I've also had to replace my shower curtain twice because they've ripped it to pieces. I give them toys and scratching posts and beds, which they use all the time. So, as far as I can tell, it's not just boredom.
This morning was kinda the last straw. I woke up to the sound of shattering porcelin, as they had knocked my bedside lamp onto the floor, breaking it. I go out into the living room and find that the little craft project I had made with a friend (making a keychain with ponybeads and gimp) and had put away in a plastic bag on the table is now ripped apart on the floor, and there are beads everywhere. I go over to the computer and they have knocked the router over onto a framed painting I had sitting behind the desk and the frame is now broken and the glass shattered. Also by the computer I find my glasses, which they have taken from the nightstand and which I spent about 20 minutes this morning, looking among broken lamp pieces trying to find.
So help! How can I get my cats to behave better when I'm not around? They do none of these things while I'm here and so punishing them when I come home or wake up will be completely useless. I understand cat-proofing a house and removing opportunities for them, but it seems like anything at all I leave out in any way is going to be possibly destroyed. I need some way to stop the behavior in the first place.
Until I'm not around.
Often I'll come home or wake up to some sort of disaster area. A roll of toilet paper or paper towel will be shredded and all over the house, the front door carpet will be bunched up in the kitchen or dining room, there's a high chance that something is broken. When I had the Christmas tree up, I couldn't decorate it until the last few days since they broke at least a couple of baubles and bent the tree every day. I've also had to replace my shower curtain twice because they've ripped it to pieces. I give them toys and scratching posts and beds, which they use all the time. So, as far as I can tell, it's not just boredom.
This morning was kinda the last straw. I woke up to the sound of shattering porcelin, as they had knocked my bedside lamp onto the floor, breaking it. I go out into the living room and find that the little craft project I had made with a friend (making a keychain with ponybeads and gimp) and had put away in a plastic bag on the table is now ripped apart on the floor, and there are beads everywhere. I go over to the computer and they have knocked the router over onto a framed painting I had sitting behind the desk and the frame is now broken and the glass shattered. Also by the computer I find my glasses, which they have taken from the nightstand and which I spent about 20 minutes this morning, looking among broken lamp pieces trying to find.
So help! How can I get my cats to behave better when I'm not around? They do none of these things while I'm here and so punishing them when I come home or wake up will be completely useless. I understand cat-proofing a house and removing opportunities for them, but it seems like anything at all I leave out in any way is going to be possibly destroyed. I need some way to stop the behavior in the first place.
Asiina on
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GM: Rusty Chains (DH Ongoing)
PSN Hypacia
Xbox HypaciaMinnow
Discord Hypacia#0391
Step one would be to cat proof your house as much as possible. I lock my cats in my bedroom when I have to leave them home alone, but my room doesn't have a lot of knickknacks lying around, nor do I have any particularly breakable items out. I have childproof locks on the closet so they can't get in. I only let them out when I'm home, so I can supervise them around my more delicate decorations. I keep all doors closed so they don't get into other rooms where I can't watch them.
I have four cats, BTW, and they have only broken one thing of value since I got them.
You may have to just close the bathroom door, or fold the shower curtain up over the rod when you're not home until they grow out of it.
For us, we had to get really disciplined about closing the closet doors, making sure the toilet paper was out of reach (up on a shelf instead of on the little spool) and some other minor stuff.
They grow out of it but the biggest thing we did was put a scratching post in the bedroom so when they come out of the bathroom litter box they can claw at it. Cats are lazy as shit and wont bother going more than a few feet to scratch on something if they feel like it.
We also work in a hospital so we brought home some ace bandages (the kind you wrap around a sprain) and they drag them around and claw at them, but since they don't shred we can just wad them up and toss them in a corner... the cats then get the pleasure of dragging it around some more.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
They annoy me while I sleep by lying on me and licking any exposed skin, so I don't let them into my room on weekday nights since I get very little sleep as it is. I leave it open on weekends, but that doesn't really make a difference (notice, last night was a weekend night and they were in there). Keeping them in the bedroom also means keeping the litter in my bedroom, which I really don't want.
They're fairly young (just over a year). I try to keep them entertained while I'm here, and they have available toys to play with while I'm not (which they'll use spontaneously while I'm around), so I'm not sure why they continue to destroy things that aren't their toys when I can't see them.
GM: Rusty Chains (DH Ongoing)
Yeah, it's not as though they're living creatures or anything, fuck cats? no.
Quit overreacting. A room is plenty of space for a couple of hours.
Cat people.
wow.
we found a cat person.
Not especially, I prefer dogs. Though I will say that if you decide to have a pet you are in my opinion obligated to use confinement only as a last resort. The implication that being locked in a room with no real grasp on why would be any less traumatic for an animal with limited reasoning as opposed to a human child is sort of odd to me.
It was also implied that the living space was rather small, and locking a destructive animal up in a small room will do very little good, except to localize and increase the damage done. Yeah, your shower curtain will be fine, but your mattress will be vaporized.
Edit: Go buy some ace bandages and fill an old sock with catnip then tie off the end. They'll grow out of it, and if you only give them the sock when you're about to leave it should go a long way in keeping them distracted and eventually mellowed out. In 6 months they'd probably stop without you doing anything at all. You just need your property to survive that long.
And it's not really a couple of hours. It's at least 9 hours, closer to 10 most days (8 hour workday + travel time). A tiny room with no windows or even room for toys would be pretty bad.
I'd train them and/or use catnip as an incentive but they don't eat treats and I think they're immune to catnip. I've tried several kinds and none produce any sort of reaction. I'll try getting the bandage roll and giving them a toy that they only get when I'm not around and see if that has an effect.
Buy it live. Dried catnip sucks. Plus if you only take a sprig or two at a time a 3$ catnip plant can last you a month or more during the growing season. Also try some wheat grass as a treat. Can buy it in a supermarket pretty easy and cheap, and they really enjoy it.