Keeping your cat away from the Christmas Tree

Does your cat love the Christmas tree?

Flashing lights and dangling balls are too much temptation for cats to resist.  I know that Massimo loves to lay on the presents and play with the ornaments.  When he was a kitten, he often tried to climb in the tree.

Cat in a Christmas Tree

When training cats to stay off the kitchen counter, the couch, and in December, the Christmas tree, people often think of using a water bottle and spraying the cat.  While an effective method, I would not recommend spraying your cat while in or around a tree wrapped in lights.

A more effective deterrent for the cat is the SSSCat Cat Training Device.  It is a humane way to keep cats away from off-limit areas. Your cat’s movement will activate the motion sensor, a beeping tone is heard and then the spray is released. The scentless spray is stainless, ozone friendly and has no side effects.

Enjoy your Christmas tree worry free.  Enjoy the holiday season and enjoy your pets.

Tell us about your favorite cat Christmas tree disaster.

Keep Your Cat From Scratching The Furniture

Every cat will paw and scratch at furniture unless there is an alternative area for him to use as a scratch pad. Unfortunately, that is just the way it is, cats must scratch something! When they are on the lookout for something to scratch, they will choose something sturdy that has an appealing texture to the surface. It must also be in convenient location for the cat. Chairs, couches, and carpeted staircases are great locations because a cat can get a real good stretch and the material allows him to dig his nails deep into the surface.

Cat scratching is an innate behavior and because of this, you cannot get your cat to stop the scratching by chasing him away, squirting water, hitting or scolding. Regardless of what you do, they will still need to scratch. Nothing will stop your cat. If you work to prevent it, your cat will find other convenient locations to use as his scratching post. He will also become more and more anxious.

Although your scolding actions to try stop the cat from scratching may work temporarily – because he scurries away – this is not the case. You may even be convinced that your cat “understands that he is being bad”, but unfortunately what is happening is that he now associates you as something to fear and creates anxiety. He runs away from you because your relationship is being damaged, and becoming “dysfunctional”, so to speak. Now what is happening is that every time your cat needs to scratch he will start to feel nervous and scared because this natural instinct is now connected with something “bad”.

What To Do

While you cannot stop your cat from scratching (why would you, it’s natural), you can indeed work to keep him from scratching furniture and other important areas. However, it takes two-fold approach to changing the behavior. You need an effective deterrent as well as a better alternative to training (as opposed to scolding techniques mentioned above). This way, you will be able to turn a negative into a positive while at the same time allowing your pet cats to partake in this very instinctual and satisfying behavior.

The deterrent should be in the form of a product called SSSCat. This training deterrent is a great way to keep cats off of counters, furniture, and other areas. It is a automatic odorless spray that is specifically made for this type of cat behavior.

The alternative scratching tool should be a cat-post that you can find in most pet stores. They come in all shapes and sizes so just choose one that would best suit your home.

The rest is up to your cat. You will be amazed that how little training is involved once this is set up. Try this out and let us know how it works with your cat.