Christmas is that lovely time of year when you can let your creative self loose and decorate your home in the true spirit of Christmas. Bright lights, sparkling ornaments, and windows decorated with festive scenes abound. The star of the show is always the Christmas tree, especially for young children who are excited about what presents Santa will bring them. And then there is your cat … they will love the tree too, but for a totally different reason.
To your cat, you have just delivered their own personal climbing tree complete with shiny, dangly objects that just beg to be attacked! It has flashing lights and food like popcorn tied to the branches, with tinsel that glitters and dangles while it whispers “Come and get me Kitty!”
You can almost count the minutes until your cat launches into the tree and fells it for the first time this season! So what does the astute cat owner do? Is the Christmas tree a thing of the past with a resident cat?
How to outsmart your cat during the Christmas period, and save your sanity!
Luckily we can learn from many past cat owners who have discovered the hard way about how to keep their cat away from the tree. Apart from the annoyance of picking the tree up and repairing the home after it gets toppled by an adventurous cat, there is the risk of the mad dash to the on-call vet (very expensive) to administer to your cat who has injuries( bleeding cuts), poisoning (from eating the tree or Xmas plants) or a pet in distress with abdominal blockage (caused from eating tinsel, fake snow, or ornament parts).
Here’s seven super effective tips to avoid having a ‘cat-astrophe’ at Christmas!
- Erect your tree away from any shelves or furniture that your cat can launch itself off to gain access to the tree. And if possible, tie the tree to the wall, window or ceiling to make pushing it over almost impossible. While you are at it, weight the base of the tree to anchor it to the floor. Many artificial trees are quite lightweight in design - they were not made to withstand an attack from an active cat!
- Secure electrical cords going from the power socket to the tree by taping them to the floor, or running them through a tough PVC pipe so pets cannot chew on them. Push the lights deep into the tree - try and make them as hard to get as possible for an adventurous cat. Burns to the mouth can be severe if your pet decides to chew the cords, not to mention electrocution which could be disastrous
- If you have delicate glass-like ornaments, tie them securely to the higher parts of the tree. Make it difficult to remove these by tying them tightly to the branches. Put sturdier ornaments lower down. Spray the ornaments with a citrus based cat repellent or you could tie orange skins onto the tree as cats are repelled by these
- Put tinfoil under and around the tree base or lay spiky mats as cats don’t like walking on these. If you have a real tree, cover the water bowl the tree sits in, as pets will try to drink the water which can be toxic from chemicals used during the trees growth. If the water has added aspirin to extends the tree’s life, then it can be a double toxic blow for a cat
- Tinsel and angel hair - those light sparkly threads that look so good on a tree - also look great to your cat. They love to bat it, pull on it, and chew it. The result is one very sick cat and a race to the vet for emergency surgery to clear internal blockages. Try to do without that tinsel if possible, or at least until your cat gets a bit more mature
- Christmas plants such as poinsettias, heavenly smelling lilies, and even the pine needles from a real tree are toxic to cats. If you must have these, keep them in a room that you can close off at night or when you are out so that a bored feline won’t be tempted. The pine needles can also cause internal obstructions if eaten by your cat
- Distractions work beautifully! At the same time as you put up your tree, give your cat an early gift … a brand new, state-of-the-art climbing tree. With luck, your energetic feline will attack that and not the tree. Leave a few boxes and paper shopping bags lying around so your cat can become a cat-in-a-box or bag! Give them a new ball or two, complete with feathered attachments! Distract them as much as possible and they might - if you are lucky - forego the Christmas tree.
