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Adventures with Kitty...is this normal


lynn
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(Please note kitty has done most of these things with us close by and moved her away from danger in all these incidents) kitty has in the past few weeks.. Jumped in the dryer while I was switching out the laundry, gets in the fridge when someone opens the door, gets in the bath tubs and attempts to clean the drain, gets on the bathroom countertops and managed to get the drain blocker thing off and attempted to clean the drain, splashes in the toilet if t h e lid is left up (she waits outside the bathroom door then races inside to see if she can get to the toilet as so one as one leaves???) Is this normal behavior? Having kitty is like having a toddler in the house. We have to kitty proof every room.

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Bathroom stuff, totally normal, been there, done that with our cats. We got in the habit of closing the toilet lids and leaving the bathroom doors closed--though that was just as much to protect the trash can as the drains.

 

My cats have never tried to get into the fridge. I don't think they like the cold. However, cabinets are fair game ... for a while there, they were opening the closed lower cabinets to get inside :glare: Ours also never tried to get into the dryer, but probably just because it didn't occur to them. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't, now that I think about it!

 

So I say it's perfectly normal behavior, especially if it's a kitten or young adult cat. They do settle down with time. When we first got our two cats--as soon as they were old enough to leave their mom--it was insane. They literally climbed the curtains, the furniture, and my pants leg. They were into anything and everything. It took a year or more for them to calm down significantly.

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This is still a kitten?  Well, you do have a toddler in the house!!

 

I won't get baby animals any more...  I will only raise my own species!  We got two new cats recently; they were about a year old.  Still a lot of kitten-ish behavior, but not as bad as if they were really little, and it will be over sooner!  And yes, two so they can tire each other out...

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Another vote for totally normal. We have one cat who steals socks and hangs them on the side of his water dish. We have another cat who sees it as his duty to bring dish towels, stray pieces of laundry, or other items upstairs at night and meow loudly to announce his conquest. One morning, we awoke to find all the cloth napkins upstairs. Another time, we came home to find that he had taken all of DS's stuffed birds (from Audubon that make an accurate bird call) upstairs. All 12 of them were nicely lined up. When he's not bring items upstairs, he's resting up from his labors.

 

And as to the water stuff: I had a cat who always wanted to get in the bathtub with me. We keep our toilet lids down. I have no doubt we'd find stray socks in the toilet.

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Agree--normal. We have 2 new-to-us kitties and they have tried most of these things. When we had a cold snap a couple weeks ago dd convinced dh to light the fireplace. The younger cat--about 1yo--tried to investigate the fire, sniffing and trying to paw it. I thought animals were smarter than that. Amazingly, no singed whiskers. He's the one that likes the dryer and can't wait to get in the bathroom so he can grab a hair elastic to play with. And he can entertain himself for a long time in the bathtub, which is ok except he manages to make such a racket we have to throw him out and keep the door shut. Older cat, about 2yo, tries to get anywhere he thinks might have food--counters, table, cabinets. His favorite hobby is to stare at the bird feeder at then jump at the window trying to catch the birds. Our previous cats weren't quite so mischievous. But they were indoor/outdoor. We're trying to keep these 2 indoor only so I suppose with the lack of stimulation they need to make their own fun. :laugh:

 

Enjoy!

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We shut a cat into the fridge for the whole afternoon once. (accidentally, of course). She was rather cold.

 

We also found our poor tiny (different) kitty who we were sure must have escaped and gotten lost, three days after it disappeared. It had crawled into an open drawer, squeezed through the gap in the back and fallen down into the gap between the bottom drawer and the floor, totally enclosed, until we finally heard tiny mews three days later. That was a rather horrific and traumatising event for all involved (however the kitten went on to be a grown cat and live a very happy life with no sign of it's early trauma, though it never went into a drawer again)

 

Yeah, kittens are like toddlers. They do (usually) grow out of the suicidal inquisitiveness eventually. 

 

But the saying 'curiosity killed the cat' didnt just come from nowhere!

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Another vote for totally normal. We have one cat who steals socks and hangs them on the side of his water dish. We have another cat who sees it as his duty to bring dish towels, stray pieces of laundry, or other items upstairs at night and meow loudly to announce his conquest. One morning, we awoke to find all the cloth napkins upstairs. Another time, we came home to find that he had taken all of DS's stuffed birds (from Audubon that make an accurate bird call) upstairs. All 12 of them were nicely lined up. When he's not bring items upstairs, he's resting up from his labors.

 

And as to the water stuff: I had a cat who always wanted to get in the bathtub with me. We keep our toilet lids down. I have no doubt we'd find stray socks in the toilet.

 

Yes!  We've had more than one dragging around socks.  Also, I thought dd was leaving her Barbies on her bed at night which I told her not to do -- and then realized that one of the cats liked to drag them around at night and deposit them on her bed.

 

That was also the cat who was obsessed with water.  When she was young she would walk around on the bathtub rim when I was in the tub (after falling in she eventually got over that one).  And she always had to stick her paw in her water dish before she took a drink, just like a dog.

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I agree with the others, totally normal behavior! 

 

I have a cat that is 18 months old and he loves water! He sits outside the shower door and watches the water run down, then when we get out, he runs into the shower as soon as the door opens. He watches the water run down the drain. This same cat jumps onto the bathroom counter to try to catch the water coming from the spout when we brush our teeth, etc.. He is just fascinated by it. This is the same cat that plays fetch with pipe cleaners. He also runs into the coat closet nearly every time we open the door to it. He will come from the other side of the house to do this. The other cat, his litter mate, loves walking behind the washer and dryer so he comes running when he hears that door open. I always have to make sure he's out when I'm ready to close the door! 

 

It sounds like your kitten is having some fun adventures - I do hope you enjoy watching him explore! 

 

 

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One of mine does stuff like that and he is not a kitten.  He is nuts!  He loves bathtubs and sinks.  He has this thing where he jumps on tables or counters and pushes whatever is on there onto the floor.  We have a dedicated table for school stuff and I have gone down there to find every single thing on the floor.

 

Ugh....

 

It's really impossible to kitty proof with him.  I like him, but man is he nuts.

 

 

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We cannot leave open glasses of water anywhere and our 2 cats are 13 years old!  LOL.  Our cats are pretty mellow now, but still collect weird things and put them in their food dishes.  One insists on sleeping under the covers in the winter.  They both love pushing thing off of tables.  They are still cray cray!

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We cannot leave open glasses of water anywhere and our 2 cats are 13 years old!  LOL.  Our cats are pretty mellow now, but still collect weird things and put them in their food dishes.  One insists on sleeping under the covers in the winter.  They both love pushing thing off of tables.  They are still cray cray!

 

Same here with the glasses.  I have to cover my glass otherwise he'll stick his face in it and start drinking.

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One of my cats lets us know when we've waited too long to feed her, or when we've ignored her requests to sit down and pet her for too long, or when she's desperate to play. That's when she knocks things off the table. It's particularly annoying when she wants us to feed her first thing in the morning, and we want to sleep in, and she knocks the bedside lamp over, or pushes my glasses onto the floor ... I started putting my glasses in a drawer at night because of that cat!

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This is why I only adopt full grown cats, lol. 

 

And yes, be very careful about the laundry.  Don't toss in a towel or a blanket without looking in the machine and also shaking out the towel or blanket.  I also know a couple people who accidentally killed a kitten that way.  A pile of blankets or towels was tossed in and either the kitten was already in the machine and not seen or was in the blankets.  Either way, it didn't end well.

 

My cat is too big to do such a thing and not be seen, but I still tend to shake things out before they go it.  It has saved me a couple times from washing stuff that shouldn't have gone in the machine.

 

You can use a spray bottle to keep her away from things.  I would do it with the toilet.  Just spray her a couple times, maybe make a good hisssss sound while you do it, whenever you see her at the toilet.  I had a cat who liked to try to escape every time anyone opened the door.  I took the spray bottle with me, and then walked in a few times and greeted her with a spray.  That ended the problem quickly.  Maybe she needed a yearly refresher...cat's aren't super smart, lol. But they are very much creatures of habit, so if she is doing something you really don't like then you have to break the habit.

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