Kitten obsessed with laptops when working from home?!

[MrD20]

Hi all (photo attached as per the rules!)
This is our new kitten Dennis, he is 8 weeks old. He’s such a lovable little guy... very playful and cuddly. However we are currently working from home... we have an open plan kitchen/living area and we don’t have anywhere else to work from other than the kitchen table. I tend to wake up, feed him... play with him for about an hour and then We settle down on the kitchen table to work. (On weekends/ days off and evenings we obviously also do plenty of playtime).

The issue is, on weekdays he is OBSESSED with being on the table. This isn’t an issue if he would sit on it and play on there with his toy (or sleep on the paper as my old cat used to- which is fine)

But he is hell bent on destroying everything on the table - knocking the pens off, ripping up/chewing the papers - he sits on the laptop and bites the corners of it - chews our headphones, he even switches the laptops off with his paw!!

We have tried continually putting him down off the table / rewarding him when he goes down / ignoring him .... but he doesn’t seem to be getting the message. Does anyone have any tips on what to do?!

We really try to stimulate him as much as possible and we have so many fishing rod and batting toys / lasers etc that we play with him in the morning/ lunchtimes and evening ... it’s just these in between bits when we really can’t play :(

Any advice would be so appreciated x

He is very cute though, I would find it hard to be cross with that little face.

Zooplus do a great range of interactive toys he can play with on his own & there’s always YouTube videos for cats with birds and mice to watch up close.

Well quite obviously he is after the mouse!!

Aww just look at his little face!! Awww he is gorgeous!!!

Aah what a cutie. My husband banned our kittens from his office when they were causing chaos. Can you leave the kitten with the run of the bedroom/bathroom and shut the living room door?

Our kittens can often be easily distracted by a table tennis ball bouncing noisily on a wooden floor - or on the bathroom tiles. Also ours tend to have a mad 90 mi it's in the morning then calm down and sleep till lunchtime, then have a mad half hour then sleep again till kids get home. So it wouldn't be unnatural for Dennis to need a morning nap. (I also wonder if like kids they get naughtier when overtired.....but that could just be me anthropormorphising my cats!) - not sure if I made up that version of the word.....

Well laptops are warm so he probably wants to sit on something warm? Also the screen is bright & interesting plus you're paying it more attention than him so...

You could always scatter loads of pens for him to push off the table with drinking straws and bottle caps. He’s going to do it anyway so you might as well go with it.

Thanks all! He is such a cutie (he has actually just crashed - see pic attached... don’t be fooled by the innocence!) so it may be a case of adjusting when I work to suit as he seems to crash out at around 10:30 but my partner can’t due to conference calls etc. He actually jumped up onto his shoulder during a call to his boss which I must admit did make me laugh

• I did consider moving everything into the other room but I read that it’s confusing for them to move their litter tray?!

Thank you for the tip re: toys, I may try some of the interactive toys for moments when we really need him to amuse himself for 20 mins or so...! Hopefully that will do the trick. We did keep putting him down but I think that turned into a game itself! Dennis the menace

YABU, he is gorgeous! Joking aside, I can see how distracting that might be. Spongecat will still push things off the side if not given enough attention sometimes, and she's 12+. Others have made excellent suggestions. To add to that I am always intrigued by the goldfish on an ipad screen thing. App? Good luck.

He is soooo lovely!!

I have started working in bed for a few hours some days, as I find the cats will come and snuggle up to sleep instead of the usual destruction. Not a solution for every day, but when I have something I need to really focus on it helps.

Your kitten is gorgeous and I'm afraid you've described normal kitten/cat behaviour.
Entirely your fault anyway for calling him Dennis (great kitten name )
Good luck!

We have 2 litter trays (one in the kitchen and one in the hallway). Sometimes we lock them in the living room if the front door is to be open a while and I just move the litter tray in there and put water in the room too away from the tray. They have used it and touch wood no accidents....so no confusion for them.....

Our cat is 20+ and still walks all over my laptop, swishes pens off the desk with his tail etc

Aww hi Dennis!
When I lived at my mum's and worked from home (I always WFH) the cat used to get on the sofa next to me and nudge the laptop off my knee with her head, and then get on my knee in place of the laptop.
Every day.
The only thing I could do to compromise was sit at the kitchen table (not as comfy!!) and have the laptop on the table, then the cat could sit on my knee under the table.
It's so difficult when they need this much attention isn't it! Hopefully he will settle and you can get into a routine.
Do you plan on letting him out when he's a bit older? That helped with our cat a lot .. though in winter she only goes out to wee/poo and then comes back in anyway. In summer she potters about in the garden all day so we get plenty of peace.

If you’ve got pipe cleaners they love a twisted up pipe cleaner but yes calling a kitten Dennis was rather asking for it.

Put a box on the desk? He will probably sit in it and it might contain him a bit. He's gorgeous.

Dennis is such a brilliant name.

You need a bag of ping pong balls or pipe cleaners or rolled up foil balls (actually not that if you ever want to eat an easter egg in peace) and chuck them whenever he's frisky.

Or get another kitten

Thank you all, some really useful suggestions ! I have dug out an old cardboard box from under the stairs and that is now on the table so I’ll let you know how we get on!

He will be going outside when he’s able :) we have a cat flap ready to set up, however unfortunately at present our vet has postponed all non urgent appointments For the next month due to lockdown which includes chipping and neutering :( so once all that is done he will be able to roam free!

Haha and yes we were definitely asking for it naming him Dennis - he suits it down to the ground!

we have a portable pet playpen which our visiting puppy loves playing in when he is getting a bit excited, it's safe and can be used indoors or outdoors. it keeps everyone safe.
foter.com/playpen-for-cats

Update:

I'm sure your boss wouldn't expect you to do any work in this situation, OP

It's warm. How about putting a wheat bag or hot water bottle in a box for him.

Can you put an electric blanket on the table for him? He won't go on the floor, he wants to see what you're doing

Mine are obsessed with my phone, chewing my screen, walking on the keyboard to fully get attention, or tapping at pens and then being 'surprised' when they fall off the table.. TBH, I just shift them off (at which point they climb back, but you know, you have to try).

I have two cushions behind my monitor in an attempt to give them somewhere more attractive to settle down than draped around the laptop or on my mousepad, which works perhaps half the time....

Cats. What can you do. (mine are worth any slight irritation, because they hunt down all the spiders in the house, and living in the country, there's a lot of them.

Many rescues only adopt out in pairs or when there is already feline company in the new home. They will then entertain each other for hours and be less reliant on human input. He’s adorable, but to see an eight-week-old kitten without other cats (or even a dog) to play with is sad.