Tips for First-Time Cat Owners: Keeping Kittens Away from Christmas Trees

[sirgav1n]

Edited to ask how do you deal with the scratching furniture/carpets? Thanks for advice re trees and showing me your cute kitties

First time cat owner here! Have an allergy I thought to all breeds but ok with Russian blues. She has scratch posts/mats and plenty of toys her favourite is the rod with feather. She’s only coming up for 4 months so I know that she’s still very young, also how do you keep them out of Christmas trees?! Seen citrus sprays but I bet they’re a waste of time unless someone can recommended any?! Here’s Nova looking adorable after a hard days scratching and playing

 

[lokana]

We have a 4 month old kitten this year too and we just used plain water in a bottle. Now we can just shake it and she leaves it alone.

 

[justlovelife21]

You can’t keep them out of the trees. My 7 year old still scales ours every year. My husband now tethers it to the wall

 

[fenix144]

Cats are like kids they soon get fed up of hearing the word no keep away I've got 2 cats one isn't remotely interested the other loves to sleep under it on the fluffy snow dress.

 

[hambone]

Best of luck to you lol I’ve got a 3 year old savannah cat called tigger…only put the tree up today and I’ve had to rescue him from the tree…every years been the same only he’s a lot bigger…don’t have any breakable balls

 

[deeirl]

What a beauty!

 

[bluepearl]

I have had plenty of cats and none of them have bothered with my trees. Xx

 

[ozzi119]

Aww she looks like my boy ,around the same age ,no luck with the tree sorry

 

[bjb0718]

@ozzi119 look closely

 

[ozzi119]

@bjb0718 I see although getting an expert in spotting cats in trees lately I have two brothers and they're a bloody nightmare xx

 

[dmarkwick]

Honestly you don’t you accept that year one they will be inquisitive and don’t encourage it, by year 2 they usually are less interested

 

[kait29]

We have been using a citrus spray...regular air freshener one...from aldi...and one of those peel citus air freshener ones under the tree too...we spray the tree every night, and on the odd occasions they touched the tree in the beginning...we sprayed them with water.... took about 3 attempts at them touching the tree and sprays each night of citrus spray on tree. Now they don't go anywhere near it. Last year my puppy decimated my tree so we had to get a new one this year. We have 2 new cats this year too and doing this has really stopped them all touching it

 

[jill3131]

I just have to say my cats name and he stops what he is doing. If I say it twice he knows not to do it again. Don’t ask how or what I did. He is 5 years old though so might be an age thing.
Your cat is beautiful lovely colour xxx

 

[scudzo231]

New cat owner here too. Spot the kitten

 

[sinkafff]

We couldn’t keep ours out of the tree. But I did put bells on the bottom of the tree so I could hear when they were going for it! Packed away my glass baubles and breakables. Also tied the top of our tree to doorframe to stop it falling on them or the toddlers!

 

[chris5679]

I have 2 cats, one (hes 18months old) who chews the tree, hits the decorations off and tries to eat them! And the other who is only 7 months old just wants to lie under it all snug but has never done tried to chew, climb or anything the the other one does.
I also got the citrus spray to stop them scratching sofa - it's crap! Good luck with keeping your tree up for the next few weeks!

 

[sas757]

Can you see her?

 

[aplolgeticfreak]

The 1st Christmas we had our cat, he was 5 months at the time, he ran up inside the tree which promptly fell down on top of him, scared the bejesus out of him with all the baubles shooting off in all directions, he's never been near the tree since, he's 7 now! X

 

[jettcute]

Mine is 3 months and has responded to a stern no and moving him out the way, he hasn’t tried to climb it, same with other things he is getting used to the word no!

 

[stonehengeman]

Growing up we had to tie our tree to the wall to stop it crashing to the floor when our 3 cats climbed it over night