Q: My husband and I adopted a kitten a few months ago, and now that the warmer weather is coming we need some help cat-proofing the apartment in a new way. We're lucky enough to have two large 6 foot windows and a sliding door (with screen) that's about 10 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Any tips for how to keep the cat from climbing on the screens? We keep her nails clipped short, but she manages to grab hold anyway. Any diversion tips? Thanks!
Sent by Laura
Editor - The most common and easy solution is to use a spray bottle to create a negative connection with the act of climbing the screen. We've used this technique before to train our cats; it's harmless and doesn't take too long to communicate your cat's misbehavior will be rewarded with a spray of water on their backside.
Another solution is to purchase something like Stickypaws strips. We've used these ourselves to deter our cats from climbing onto certain shelving/ledges; your could easily apply the strips onto sections of the screen. The next time they jump, they'll find themselves feeling tactile feedback not to their liking and will equate the screen with that avoid-at-all-costs sticky sensation. After a couple of weeks, you can just remove it, but they'll avoid the area nonetheless (and if they forget, a "refreshed course" can always be reapplied).
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Comments (53)
I second the spray bottle technique. After a while you won't even need to spray, just the threat of the spray bottle will be enough to send her running! I sometimes leave the ominous spray bottle sitting where I don't want my cats to go (on the countertops, for example) and they won't dare to go near it. Good luck!
You can cover the portions of your screen the cat tends to climb with clear plastic packing tape. They dislike the texture and after a few months you can peel the tape off and the cat will leave it alone. This also works on furniture.
That picture is great! :)
My cat did this when he was a kitten. Fond memory, actually. They only do it as kittens as they are small enough to gain some traction. You could tape up a piece of sheeting or plastic film to deter the kitty. I thought it was kind of hilarious, though.
That pic is hilarious! Water guns work too.
Does your kitten have grey marking on her lower chin? It looks like her mouth is open like she's take by surprise!
Very very very cute kitten and picture; make sure you save some good ones of her climbing before training her not to!
And thanks for the tips, I have the same problem in my house in the summer, my adult cat uses the screen as a scratch post.
A friend of mine had a kitten that would do this all of the time. One day the screen door was left open and the kitten went to jump up on where the screen normally was only to end up launching herself onto the small balcony and screeching to a stop at the very edge. She sat there looking out over the 4 or 5 story plunge for a few seconds before racing back inside, never to attempt jumping on the screen again.
I second the Sticky Paws.
We have effectively broken our cat of clawing the furniture but putting strips on the corners covering the piping she loves so much. The squirt gun didn't work as well because she would just claw when we weren't looking. S.P. is basically well designed double stick tape. It'll pick up dust and grime but it's very easy to remove and replace if needed. It sounds like a great solution for the screen door.
The cat looks like he's saying, "Oh no! Mr. Bill!"
"They only do it as kittens as they are small enough to gain some traction." -- NOT! Our cat did this for at least 10 years. The spray bottle was the only thing that even came close to dissuading her.
My cat could care less whether you spray her, she just goes up there when you're not around. And everyone should beware -- my cat managed to yank the whole screen down (it wasn't firmly locked into the window frame) last summer, and jumped out it. Luckily for me, the back of our apt. is an enclosed courtyard area, otherwise she could have been gone forever...
Our kitties LOVE water (they will even jump in the shower if you don't shut the door), so the water gun idea would be a moot point. But I'm going to go get some StickyPaws and try those out tomorrow. They like to stretch on the furniture and I hope I can stop that.
The pic is SO cute!
I'm so sorry; I know this is a serious issue, but holy cow, that's one cute photo! I still am grinning.
I guess as long as a cat has claws (and I do not advocate removing them) and weighs enough to get away with being able to "climb" screens, there isn't a whole lot you can do other than block off the area. Maybe the best way to look at things is to weigh the joy of having a wonderful pet in your home while being prepared for the sacrifice of all things sharp little claws can destroy. Uber cute kitten alert!
if the cat has to walk over a certain area (e.g., the windowsill) to get to the window screen, put aluminum foil over it. cats HATE walking on aluminum foil!
de-claw
Please do not cut her claws!! she needs it for fighting and defend herself! also she will sharpen her claws anyway. so its a circle. try to train her not to. say "no" if she does try to climb.
she is a baby, it is fun for her to exploy the world. give her other possibilities. a cat tree... if she climbs at the net. gently remove her and go with her to the cattree.
double faced adhesive tape is an alternative to put on the net.
please get her a pal!
My cats have destroyed almost every blind in our house. Spray bottles only stop them for that instance but never deter them from repeating their bad behavior. Our cats are very sneaky and always manage to do their mischievous deeds when we are not around to catch them in the act. We have replaced some of the blinds with bamboo blinds and they for whatever reason do not mess with the bamboo. They seem to prefer the plastic mini blinds they can pop their heads through and look around. I don't mind them scratching up our old sectional since I am trying to get rid of it anyways. My boyfriend does mind, but he is too attached to this massive 70s era eyesore of furniture. Can I use a spray bottle on my boyfriend for bad taste?
De-clawing is really cruel Urban Opulence, in fact it is completely banned in europe. You should try other methods before going down that route.
Yes, PLEASE don't de-claw your cats. It is deeply cruel. Someone above said they need their claws for defending themselves, which is a bit of a moot point if your cat's an indoors cat, but they need them to scratch themselves at the very least. I currently have several kittens waiting to find homes (their mother was a stray, now desexed!) and they all LOVE to launch themselves at the back screen door and scale up to head-height, at which point they get freaked out and meow until someone comes to gently help them down. It's annoying, but that's no reason to commit something so cruel as de-clawing.
PS: yes Ferha, it looks just like that cat is going "O!" in surprise – maybe "Oh shit, now how do I get off this thing?"
We have one cat who responds to the spray bottle and one who doesn't. The one who doesn't has fur so thick you have to really douse him to get him wet at all. The only way it works is to get him right in the face, and its long-term effects are negligible.
We were having a lot of trouble with the cats tearing up blinds, pulling screens right out of windows (they weigh 12 lbs!), and generally being little sh*ts.
We finally put a scratching post right next to the window, so they can get their climbing/scratching/looking-outside fix all in one place. And we moved to a place with no blinds (after replacing three of them at the last place). So far, the scratching post solution seems to have worked. They get really excited looking at the birds and chipmunks outside and I think they just need to scratch!
SwedishChef – HA! Thanks. You summed up the silliness of de-clawing in two ironic words.
aluminum foil works great. put some on the floor just loose by that door. she won't want to get close to the door at all. be patient. and consistent. but teaching her now will save your sanity later.
I'm in the 'don't ever declaw - EVER' camp. It's effectively cutting off their fingers at the knuckle.
Spray her with water, use tape. She'll grow out of it. My cat used to climb everything possible - including our legs! It didn't take long for her to get big enough (and lazier) that she stopped.
Please, please, don't declaw your cat. If you can't handle the claws, don't get one.
Compressed air on a motion detector! Works great, our cat used to claw our leather sofa in the middle of the night to get us up... heres proof it worked ;) never came back to it again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSQOf-uZLeA
Ssscat! by multivet
http://www.multivet.net/en/products/ssscat/
Different things work for different cats.
I have found that spray bottles, soft claws (the ones you glue on) and trimming claws don't really work that well - and can be cruel (especially the soft claws).
Tin foil works great - all of my cats run for cover when they hear the sound of foil.
I would also recommend buying small pieces of carpet and attaching them to your walls and floors with catnip in them. I bought a whole bunch of samples from flor.com and they work like a charm! One of my cats also loves to scratch cardboard, so I've attached a huge cardboard scratching post onto the wall and it really keeps him from ruining furniture and screens.
Some other ideas:
- Put a 1-3 foot high panel of plexiglass accross the screen, starting just below where her claw marks begin.
- Install a cat door in the bottom of the screen, so she can get in and out.
- Try spraying the door with orange oil so her paws will stink: most cats deeply dislike the scent of oranges.
- Attach a decorative iron screen to your door (very 1950's) that will make climbing less easy.
Does anyone have any tips for training my cat not to sit on my keyboard. I try and close my laptop when I leave it, but if I turn for a second she'll be on it, changing file names to !!!!!!.
Currently I pick her up and say NO! very sternly and put her on the ground. I am doing the right thing?
@ mklawrie - check out the suggestion i posted about two posts above yours. trust me, it works.
It's not cruel to de-claw, that a load of $%#&!! You trim her claws anyway. She's an indoor apartment cat for god's sake, who does she have to "defend" herself from, a mouse?
She can scratch and groom herself just fine with her little paws and tongue.
Ask your vet what they think!
My full-grown cat Charlotte recently began climbing the screens. I have yet to try the spray-bottle technique, but I am going to give it a try. I know she is ruining the screens, but I have to admit that I am impressed with her screen-climbing technique. I, for one, could never climb a screen like she does.
Please don't declaw your cats! It's absolutely inhumane.
http://www.declawing.com/
http://maxshouse.com/Truth%20About%20Declawing.htm
http://cats.about.com/cs/declawing/a/declawing.htm
My solution with my kitties (and I have uh, more than a few...*shakes head*) was to place a chair by the screen so they could look out (I don't know if this would help in your case) and I replaced my screen with "pet-proof" screening, which I purchased at a Home Depot here in Canada. I'm sure they sell it at most HDs. Good luck...and ADORABLE kitteh!
I had my rescue cat declawed (front claws only) in Europe not too long ago (it's NOT completely banned, and many landlords there won't let you have a cat UNLESS it's declawed). The choice was either declaw him so my landlord would let him come in, or leave him outside to starve and fight off the street dogs. The claws went.
Not that it's stopped him. He still has no trouble catching every single cricket in my house, climbing up to windowsills, or scratching me good with the back claws when it suits him! Defenseless, hardly.
Since your cat is only still a kitten, now would be the best time to "train" him. Cats have a natural need to scale and claw things. Cats will continue to scratch/climb whatever despite being scolded. You need to provide the cat with something your okay with them clawing/scaling i.e. a cat tree, or the inside wall of a closet covered in carpet. When your cat begins to climb the screen, pick him up and place him by the cat tree/carpet wall. Hopefully he will catch on and prefer attacking the okayed item instead of the screen, sofa, upholstery, etc. :)
Just to repeat everyone else, DON'T DECLAW!!! It's a terrible, cruel choice. It can change a ca'ts demeanor for life. Declawing a cat isn't simply removing the nail. It's the equivalant of a human having the tip of the finger to past the first joint removed. It's pretty major.
meganborg, what's cruel about using Soft Paws? They are a humane alternative to de-clawing. They don't cause any pain or discomfort. I know because my cat wears them on her front claws and they don't bother her at all. They fall off eventually as the nails grow and have to be replaced. I have no need to frighten her with spray bottles, don't have to get upset with her for tearing up anything or scratching me when we play so it's less stress for me and the cat.
people seem to be very confused on what declawing really is.
it's not the act of permanently removing JUST the nails on a cat. it's a procedure that requires cutting off bone. it is painful. very painful. compounded by the fact that most veterinarians who do these procedures are older graduates who don't believe in adequate pain management therapy. it's equivalent to you cutting off all your ten finger tips and then taking tylenol for the pain.
that being said; if a client has to choose between de-clawing a cat or the cat going to the shelter. then i'll recommend de-clawing. but some people, do love their couch more than their cat.
it's a cat people. they're not dogs; you can always hide that fact that you have a cat from a landlord unless you roommate with them. granted, it's not the most ethical choice but geez, give me a break.
sexyartbeast, people get "fixed" all the time, but how many folks do you know that go and get the tips of their fingers (to their first knuckle) removed? that's basically what you're doing to the cat.
declawing is inhumane and done specifically to prevent cats from doing superficial things like clawing up a couch. spaying and neutering is to help manage overpopulation.
i am also anti-soft claws. i had them on one of my cats and he got out and was mauled by dogs because he couldn't defend himself. i don't recommend them for anyone, even indoor cats (which is what he was.)
sexyartbeast,
i'm against de-clawing in certain situations but not spaying or neutering.
Because spaying and neutering is done not just to control unwanted population. spaying and neutering cats and dogs prevents many health problems. just to mention a few; male unneutered cats are more susceptible to urinary blockage. and female unspayed dogs are prone to pyometras and mammary tumors. unneutered dogs develop a higer risk of prostate cancers.
most clients who want to have their pets neutered or spayed are responsible enough to not get them pregnant or allow their pets to impregnante the opposite sex even without having the surgery done but i would still recommend it because of the various health issues involved if they don't.
As an option to declawing, try soft paws. They are blunt vinyl claw covers. They are wide enough that they will prevent her from fitting her claws in the screen so she won't be able to climb it. Go ahead and continue to trim.
The only way to make spraying her effective is to hide the bottle from her. You want her to associate the water with the SCREEN, not with YOU. If she sees you spraying, she will know it's you and just climb when you aren't looking.
And, BELLEH! Sorry, couldn't help it.
bahahaha....... awesome photo
Telling a cat "no" is pretty much like telling the weather "no" - might amuse you, but the cat doesn't care or notice...
Cats like to climb, and indoor cats really like to look at and smell the outdoors, so a screen door is very very tempting.
Electrifying the screen ought to work (kidding! mostly...) The tape or tinfoil or whatever will work for a while after you take it off, but in a tempting environment, they will test it once in a while, and if they find the bad texture isn't there any more, they will go right back to jumping on whatever it is.
Maybe you could put a nice cat perch really close by, so she'll have somewhere she's allowed to be, from which she can see the nice outside things?
The water squirt works for us. Add some citrus to it to make it really unpleasant for the cat- lemon juice will do nicely.
If you do a sneaky squirt when you see the cat misbehaving and don't make a fuss otherwise, the cat may not associate you with the squirt. This is good, because s/he is more likely to behave when you're not around. Ideally the cat will associate climbing with receiving a squirt, not her people seeing her climb with the squirt.
The other important part is to provide some other thing for the cat to play on. I love the idea of putting it near the door so the cat can look out.
Lastly, invest in a good water gun or spray. At one stage we had one which took a couple of pumps before the water came out, and as soon as kitty heard that pumping sound, she was outta there.
Good luck!
Thank you - billy917!!
I was reading sexyartbeast's post and seriously thinking, can this person really exist?? ludicrous.
Seriously, go ask your vet, I imagine about 90% of them will advise against de-clawing. The ones that condone it are probably also the ones that have no problem with ear and tail cropping. ew.
Also, there are negative behavioral links to de-clawing. I've read multiple articles linking de-clawing with litterbox stress. Think about getting your toes cut off, and then being forced to walk on and dig through clay litter to do your business. ouch.
Trimming claws however is not only ok, but is encouraged, especially for indoor cats. In the wild, cats wear down their claws on rough surfaces (trees, bark, and the like). Indoor cats aren't as active and mainly live on smooth surfaces, so their claws will grow and grow, and can cause posture and paw injuries because the claw will grow and put stress on the paw because its too long to retract. (I've seen severe cases of this on animal planet's Animal Cops, on neglected animal cases)
My cat's claws grow really fast, and it doesn't matter how much he scratches on sisal posts and cardboard scratchers (he has about 6 in my home), his claws grow too quickly to keep up with, so I have to trim them. I know they need to be trimmed when he chews on them, poor thing. But please read up on the proper way to trim claws without injury. Its very easy to trim too short, or to crush the claw by trimming it the wrong way.
super cute pic, btw.
Our screens are pretty much destroyed, and unfortunately our cat loves sticky things, so that idea won't help. She tries to eat packing tape whenever I have it out.
Spaying and neutering is done for the good of the animal and the population. De-clawing is done for the owner. There's nothing positive about de-clawing for the cat. That's the difference.
oh, mklawrie....get used to it. prepare for a lifetime of gchats to random people of "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxcccccccccccccccvvvvvvvvvvvv." they like sitting on keyboards because they're warm, so unless you give her a heating pad instead, there's not much you can do to stop them. mine also likes to sit on the cable box. she's knocked our cable out several times.
I also recommend the Sscat (the motion-sensor air gun). The spray makes a loud noise, and having a motion sensoe means the cat associates the air spray with the action/area and not you.
We used one to train our cat not to jump on the kitchen counter. Worked like a charm.
I am not going to get into the claw/declaw discussion (because it happens EVERY TIME there is a cat-related post) but I didn't like the soft paws for my cats. The little one spends all day chewing them off, so they're a waste of money for him. The big one leaves them on but then she gets the claws hung in things (the fibers of the bathmat, the cord for the blinds). Either way it wasn't a good option for us.
why the head shaking? there's nothing wrong with non-home design related debates on a home design website. conversations evolve. if you found it out of place you didn't have to participate. but you decided to spend quite some time writing a response and then declare it a joke when people smartly responded to your question. i find that troll-ish.
My cat used to sit on the table so I got a squirt bottle, then the water left those white marks that water often leaves on wood. I borrowed my son's Nerf dart gun, and it makes a great disciplinary tool (to the cat, not the kid), as long as you don't use it at close range it is harmless.
SexyArtBeast, I'm just wondering if it was only your post about declawing vs. desexing i which you were being facetious, or also the one in which you said that you had your cat de-clawed? Because if you were being serious in the earlier post you really should be ashamed of yourself. As a commenter above pointed out in answer to your definitely-facetious comment, de-clawing is done only for the benefit of humans and the detriment of the animal. I very much hope you read those links (again in a comment) that explained what the procedure actually is.
As for your idea that a conversation such as this has no place on a design blog – well, don't you think that's a little... obnoxious? How limiting and boring a conversationalist you muct be! How would I appear if I were to attend a cooking class and someone started talking about Michael Pollan, spurring a conversation about agricultural policy in America, and I made some facetious (and proud of it) comment and made fun of the speakers for being impertinent? Because this scenario is pretty much what you are doing.
The cat in the picture looks exactly like mine and my cat climbs on the screen too. I would like to post her picture too. It's an amazing resemblance and similar behavior.
Thanks a million for this info! That pic looks so familiar. I think my kitty of 9 mo sees a bird and tries to climb up to get at it...LOL I was so relieved to find this and I will try all suggestions. Had my 1st cat de-clawed...did not know that was bad for them then and I don't want to do the same to this kitty. Thanks again!