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Climbing Cat

All cats love to climb. Cats are some of the best climbers. Cats can climb where most animals fear. Some reasons why cats like to climb are because they like to have a bird’s eye view of their territory and because they like to explore their environment. For those reasons you may find your cat on places where you do not want them to be such as: counters, tables, televisions, desks, or even climbing your drapes/curtains.

To help train a climbing cat not to climb on places that you do not want it to go on, you can try the following:

1. Provide a cat climbing post. If they do not seem interested in it at first, try putting some of their favorite food, snacks, or toys on the top of the post. You can also spray it with catnip.

2. Provide a cat window box or a cat window perch. This is a box/perch in which your cat can sit or lay and watch everything that is going on outside. A lot of people say there cats love their box/perch.

3. On areas that you do not want the cat to climb up, you can put Sticky Paws (double sided tape) on the edges of the area or you can put aluminum foil down on the tops of counter tops, tables or other furniture.

4. Trim the cat’s nails.

5. To keep your cat from climbing your drapes/curtains, use tension rods instead of drilled rods into the wall. The tension rods will simply fall down on top of the cat if it tries to climb them.

6. Replace drapes, curtains, shades and/or horizontal blinds with vertical blinds. They work very well as cats cannot climb up them, cannot shred them, cannot shed on them, and they can not be bent the way horizontal blinds can. It is furthermore easy for cats to push them aside to look outside.

7. Cats dislike the smell of citrus. To stop a climbing cat, you can put lemon or orange peels on surfaces. You can also buy Bitter Apple or Bitter Orange spray, that you spray anywhere that you do not want the cat to climb.

8. Use water to stop a climbing cat. Get a small trigger spray bottle and fill it with water. When the cat jumps or climbs simply squirt the cat once with the water. Do not squirt your cat in the face, and try to make sure your cat doesn't see you squirting it. The cat should immediately stop and run. If it didn't see you, it will think the behavior he was doing triggered the water. If he did see you, he can get sneaky and only do the behavior when you're not around.

9. Declawing should be avoided if all possible. Cats can still jump very high. Even a de-clawed cat can still jump on counters and furniture.

It may take time and patience, but if you follow these steps you are sure to stop your climbing cat from doing what she shouldn't.