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Christmas tree vs cat


gardenmom5
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I have a 9' tree.  Kinda glad we didn't' replace it last year, or this year.

Our stand was already mounted to a board - I insisted it be weighted down, so dh brought in two concrete blocks.  that will keep it from going over.

I saw one suggestion of slices of citrus hanging from the tree (towards the bottom).  that cats dont' like it.

Anyone have tips?

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Our kitties have always only gone up once each year. They are removed quickly (well, after a picture), mildly scolded and that seems to satisfy their curiosity. We allow them to sniff the lower branches and relax or sleep under it anytime they want to.

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So, cats and Christmas trees are tricky.  I have had a number of cats over the years, and 4/5 of them left the tree alone.  I mean, they would bat at the low hanging ornaments, but they didn't try to climb it, and we did absolutely nothing to discourage them.  

And then we had Obama.  He could NOT be dissuaded from climbing the Christmas tree.  He got so thoroughly tangled in lights that if two adults hadn't been immediately available, he would have hung himself.  It was massively traumatic for all of us, and he still went back at it.  We actually just didn't have a tree for several years, because of that experience.  

Last year, when he was four, we tried again, and he didn't touch it.  

So, my experience is, most of the time it's fine.  But if your cat happens to be one that is attracted to trees, there's basically nothing that you can do to prevent them from messing with it.  I'm sure there are some cats in the middle, who are interested but respond to chastisement or citrus or something, but that hasn't been my experience.  

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Ours cats love to climb the tree, so we anchor it to the wall with rope. After we go to bed, we often hear them having a wild time tearing up and down the tree.🙂 Luckily, they do not seem to have any interest in chewing on wires.

Last year, we had two puppies at Christmas, so we had a corral made of puppy playpen panels encircling the tree. Kept the puppies out, but not the cats.

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51 minutes ago, Selkie said:

Ours cats love to climb the tree, so we anchor it to the wall with rope. After we go to bed, we often hear them having a wild time tearing up and down the tree.🙂 Luckily, they do not seem to have any interest in chewing on wires.

Last year, we had two puppies at Christmas, so we had a corral made of puppy playpen panels encircling the tree. Kept the puppies out, but not the cats.

yeah - I found that out really fast.  even when he was super tiny - he climbed the puppy pen.  (I'd tried putting him in it while the dogs ran around the outside trying to sniff him.)

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Fortunately, our cats are all now too big to climb the tree. I think each has had to have it fall over under them once to get the message that what worked in prior years no longer does. 

 

We've also had trees decorated in various stuffed toys for so many years that it would seem weird to go back to family ornaments. This year is dragons, inspired by DD's Dragonology class (which also includes some various reptiles, dinosaurs sea creatures, insects, Pokemon, Neopets, etc who relate to dragons in some way), so having a cat knock the tree over (or, when we have kittens, sit in the tree and knock off ornaments) is harmless. This year, the tree is joined by a dragon skeleton I found online on discount after Halloween, and gave to DD Weds for her birthday. He is now festooned with lights :). 

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Edited by dmmetler
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