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

Also cracking up at some of your cat vs laptop stories. Dennis is also currently working on a large report on his own personal laptop mainly consisting of “Wxcwfjjayqv516”

My cat has sent a few zoom messages too! Thankfully he doesn't sit on the laptop, just walks over it at times! Think I'll try the old laptop trick too from now!

Dennis is gorgeous. My cat, with similar colouring, was rescued as an adult so I never saw her as a kitten, but seeing Dennis gives me an idea of what she might have been like. Thank you for sharing all these great pics. Happy wfh with him!

@forsucksfake

Dennis is gorgeous. My cat, with similar colouring, was rescued as an adult so I never saw her as a kitten, but seeing Dennis gives me an idea of what she might have been like. Thank you for sharing all these great pics. Happy wfh with him!

@forsucksfake ahhh thank you. They’re so funny aren’t they. Can’t remember life without him now. Have you got any pics of your lovely cat?!

Thank you for the new Dennis the Menace pictures OP, he is beautiful. So photogenic! 😻

Mine switched my laptop into airplane mode and made it so nobody could hear me. Which was interesting. He also likes to steal my pens

Here she is! I don't know how old she is, but I & the vet thought she was an 8-m-o kitten when I found her. But she is still the same size (under 3kg) 3 years later.

So cute. Dennis looks very proud of his laptop!

It must be very hard to scold young Dennis. I love laptop kitties.

Back in the pre-internet days I remember we stupidly left a streetmap out unfolded overnight and our ginger Tom had eaten central Bath!

@forsucksfake, that's another pretty little cat!

He's lovely.

I used to foster cats, most of my dissertation was written with a cat on the back of the computer chair with him grooming me!

Does he react to catnip? (current cat doesn't) catnip in a box can keep a cat busy for a while, followed by sleep.

He's a bit like mine, and as a PP said mine is a stray so I like to see kittens and think what she would be like.

@forsucksfake

I thought mine was about 6 months when I found her (or she found me) the vet said a year looking at her teeth.

She hasn't grown at all and cons the neighbours into feeding her. Apparently if they have a litter young they can stop growing so I do wonder if that happened to mine.

Pic of course - she wasn't impressed with her present

@sashh She's beautiful! I love her white paws and unusual ginger and tiger mix.

I was looking for a Christmas hat for my girl, but seeing that photo makes me realise I will go for a bid/bandana instead.

That early litter theory makes sense! Thanks for telling me about it. But it makes me a little sad to think about what might have become of possible kittens. Mine was a TNR as you can see from her notched ear. So they might have found homes for the kittens but considered her too feral to adopt. (As it turns out, most of her fierceness disappeared within 16 hours, and all of it within a few days!)

Will the hat make a re-appearance next month?

check out videos for cats on youtube! birds, mice etc - they kept my old moggy happy for ages

apart from that the highlight of my working day is someone's cat appearing in a zoom meeting. there is one reliable little tart who needs to be admired constantly.

also - sterling work with all the photos, please keep them coming! dennis is lovely!

@MrD20 How is Dennis the adorable doing now?.

Yesterday I was berating IT support about having been kicked out of my hosted server, ranting about how they needed to look into it as a priority .... when I realised Charlie here had pressed the Airplane mode key so I had no wifi .... 😳

Just woke Magic up laughing at that!

How did you get out of that one?.

All these cat photos are absolutely adorable!!! Love seeing these pictures and the stories of cats vs laptops are cracking me up! They’re so funny.

@Fluffycloudland77 Dennis is having a very relaxing evening tonight in front of the television!!

@refusetobeasheep

Yesterday I was berating IT support about having been kicked out of my hosted server, ranting about how they needed to look into it as a priority .... when I realised Charlie here had pressed the Airplane mode key so I had no wifi .... 😳

This is fantastic hahaha

@Fluffycloudland77

How did you get out of that one?.

A grovelling apology!

When I used a laptop instead of a PC I used a stand, it made a great kitty heated tent. I'm trying to find a pic.

Here it is, as you can see it was a busy day and she was trying to fit into a tissue box too.

Wildlife programs on the tv with lots of squeaky little mammals keep them busy for hours. Watching the tv, looking behind the tv for the mammals. Ours doesn’t hunt anything but will watch tv!
Dennis is very cute.

Cheddar loves Hey Dugee, the late Maia likes bake-off!

Not only does Leo crash most of my video calls and put his bum hole right in view of the laptop camera, he also sits between my keyboard an monitor in protest..

Ive put his blanket on the dining chair next to me and so far so good!

My boss has a cat and sometimes she will video call me just so her kitty can "talk" to Leo if he is near me :)

Omg these cats/co workers are adorable!!!