Kittens and Christmas tree

[SoupDragon]

I'm partway through putting up our tree and I'm kidding myself aren't I? I can not possibly have the tree with curtain climbing kittens in the house. I'm going to have to limit myself to a 3ft sapling on top of a cupboard.

Where are all my lights and decorations going to go??

Without bean toe pics (for pawprint evidence) nobody will believe you even have gorgeous kittens.......

I have posted pictures of the black reprobates before, honest. One is under the sofa and lord knows what his brother is up to.

On the plus side, neither are half way up the half constructed tree.

Here...

My kitten climbs the Christmas tree - although the novelty is finally starting to wear off. The baubles are knocked down then she chases them round the room.

She totally believes it’s a wonderful toy that I got for her.

Are they mid carol singing?

We’ve just officially adopted a rescue kitten (6 months) after fostering her. She (and my toddler) think it’s great fun deconstructing the tree. Someone on another thread suggested bells which I tried but the noise was too much for me. We also have a mini tinsel tree and she likes to knock it down like a tiger and her prey

I've got a kitten and he has been fine with the tree so far...I've been surprised! He's 4 months though so not tiny tiny...

Here's your solution.... ;)
(twitter.com/karen_flynn/status/1071337247910301697)

I don't think he's carol singing, I think he was laughing at my tree plans.

I'd seen that twitter photo 😂 I wouldn't trust them not to launch themselves off the sofa in an attempt to each it!

I wouldn't trust them an inch. They look like trouble!

Love the photos of them plotting.

If you Google "cat proof Christmas", some of the image results are very funny.

This is what I idly considered until I realised that, once the top was all sparkly and shiny, it was going to have a cat trying to climb it. There would then be every chance of it taking out everything on the mantlepiece including the mirror.

If you've got a real tree beware as the needles are poisonous to cats if eaten.

I've ended up shutting ours out of the living room as the kitten kept trying to climb our fake tree and chew through the wires. I wouldn't mind so much if I could take the lights off but it's pre-lit.

In a last ditch attempt I've bought a small fake tree for the cats to have free reign over. I'm hoping they can get it out of their system and will ignore the big tree next year.

Well that picture is blinking awesome. They look like right toerags

My naughty black cat doesn’t try and
Climb the tree until it’s being taken down weirdly. I have swapped all my lovely glass decs for plastic and
Fabric though because if he DOES decide to go up, that tree is coming DOWN he is much much heavier than the tree

No, I t's not real. We got an artificial tree when we got our first cats over 20 years ago and it's still going strong!

I'm hoping this will be the only treeless year. None of our previous cats have been too interested beyond batting a few bells with their paws. I didn't leave them unattended with it though! I really didn't think the timing of this kitten thing through!

Well our 18 week-old kittens have shown absolutely no interest in climbing our 8 foot real tree, and miraculously leave the decorations alone too, so you might be lucky...

The do like sitting under it though.

You need to up your game. This is apparently Wolfie the smiling Werecat.

We put ours up added lights and left it for a bit. The kittens lost interest in it very quickly and I've been able to decorate it since with no incident. Could you try that?

I've taken down my proper tree and replaced it with a pop up one that has decs attatched. It's harder to climb (too wobbly to get a proper grip), although my lovely kitten has tried and still attempts to bash the baubles off.

Caught in the act!

My cat has never climbed the tree though we do have to be careful where we put the v realistic robin decorations as she will try and skin them.

I bend the branches back over the bauble string so they're able to hit them but not pull them off. Thankfully my 4 haven't climbed into the tree or been bothered with getting up to reach any beads, lights, bows or flowers on the tree. They just punch the baubles dangling on the bottom and try to use the middle of the tree as a scratching post.

Cute...how old are they?

Our girls are 9 months. Weren't interested for the first few days so lulled us into a false sense of security. Now I spend all evening waving a stick with a dangly thing attached to distract them. God knows what they get up to at night and when we're at work/school, but I've already dismantled and redone it once.

Having said that, it was just looking a bit tatty as they'd knocked the branches skew whiff. I've actually put a couple of hooks in the wall and attached it with floristry wire so it can't topple, turned the tips of the branches back to hold the lights, beads and tinsel in place and triple wrapped the baubles cords.

Even so...

My adult cats are all tree behaved. Big cat likes to lie in with the presents and watch the lights. Middle cats just don't care. The kitten however is naughtiness personified, or catified. I created a present barrier around the tree, with plastic rustly Santa sacks. So far this is working. Now to work on his love of biting toes.