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How do you teach a cat to stop eating stuff?
JoeUser
Forum SantaRegistered User regular
Forum SantaRegistered User regular
So this is actually about my sister-in-law's cat. She loves eating ponytail holders for some reason and so far has had 2 surgeries to remove them from her stomach.
Now my sister-in-law has obviously since kept the items away from the cat, but how can you teach a cat not to eat certain things?
Now my sister-in-law has obviously since kept the items away from the cat, but how can you teach a cat not to eat certain things?
JoeUser on
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it only took him 2 times to figure out not to go into it.
I assume the same thing would work with a cat.
Tell her to put them in a container or the medicine cabinet.
You shouldn't pick up adult cats by that area of their body. It's done as kittens by their mother because they're light, but by doing it to a heavier adult cat, you're just hurting it and pissing it off. Terrible idea.
Also, you aren't going to be able to "train" the cat to stop eating hair elastics. Mine does it too, but it pukes them up.
My girlfriend tries to keep them put away as best as she can, but sometimes they find their way out into the open and into the cat's mouth. Sometimes they fall off in bed and the cat will find them that way.
Really, the best bet is to just be more cautious with the elastics. You aren't going to catch it eating them enough to establish negative reinforcement from it and you aren't about to keep them soaking in hot sauce.
That's what she's been doing, and her cat acts the same way. I guess I was hoping to figure a way to deter the behavior, since accidents do happen.
I've heard of the hot sauce thing for dogs, but has anyone had any luck with a cat? I don't want the kitty to be hurt! They've tried the spraying with water bit, but the cat doesn't mind being sprayed with water.
I'll see if I can find any info on sprays that cats dislike. Thanks all!
Yeah, it seems like avoidance the only thing. If the cat threw them up, that would be OK. But the metal in them was caught in its stomach, and it couldn't eat. So far the cat has been cut open twice to remove stuff.
You can and probably should try training your cat, but if the second and more-reliable prong in your two-pronged strategy doesn't involve training your sister to be more responsible about where she's leaving harmful objects that your cat keeps injesting, you're doing it wrong.
Fuck you Cat. hahaha
They make elastics that don't contain metal.
Plus it kind of looks cool to have grass growing in a pot in your house.
bitter apple. it works real nice.
Germ X: my cat frickin hates it.
I had just got done dousing my hands and rubbing in and I went to pick up my cat. She flinched back like I hit her or something.
hmmm...GermX + Flower Vase?
It is also possible that none of them will work, and your cat will insist upon eating stuff you leave lying around and then needing surgery. There are no guarantees with a cat, because cats are crazy motherfuckers whose raison d'etre is pissing you off with their inexplicable behavior.
No, but really, you can't get them to stop. I've found older cats tend to be much more relaxed and not chew on everything that's smaller than they are.
It's likely just a phase of being a cat under the age of 5 or 6, assuming the cat is younger than 5 or 6.
Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone, I'll make recommendations to my sister-in-law. The metal apparently was getting stuck in the stomach, causing her to not eat anything.
The cat is about 3, I think, so it may still have some goofy young cat habits.
wait, interbred or inbred?
Thoroughbred. But it could be a mix of that too, despite my flavorful misuse of the word.