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Kitten climbing and destroying curtains

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3.9K views 8 replies 7 participants last post by  huckybuck  
#1 ·
Post Fri Jul 22, 2022 1:33 pm
I have a 5 month old kitten which has lived with me for 2 months. She's fantastic and taken well to toilet training and feeding and sleeping schedule however has a really bad habit of climbing my curtains and destroying them. I trim her nails often but the curtains are full of holes and I don't know how to get her to stop. I will always get up and spray her when she does it but she just goes back again and it's starting to get frustrating. Does anyone have any advice on how to stop this behaviour please?
 
#2 ·
Ooh, please please don’t spray her. She won’t understand why you’re doing it, cat’s minds don’t work like that, and it will only make her fearful of you.

Do you have regular play sessions? At that age she will have LOTS of energy and really you need to structure in at least three a day of a minimum 10 minutes a time.
And play properly, really focus on her for the full time and getting her to play, don’t go at it half arsed.

Once she’s tired from play, feed her and then she should settle.

Also ensure she has plenty of things such as cats trees and scratching posts or mats, that should prove more entertaining than your curtains.

It takes a bit of work, pets aren’t ornaments and you need to spend plenty of time with them and give them diversions to use up all that energy.

But please, stop the spraying, it won’t solve a thing.
 
#8 ·
We do actually play a lot and she also is quite good at entertaining herself. But she does also have a tower and scratching post. To be completely honest I'm not bothered with the curtains I live in a very old building and she throws herself at the window which is single glazing and I feel eventually going to break as she gets bigger 😅 worried she will get hurt and cost of replacing a window.
 
#3 ·
I agree with @TonyG spraying your kitten is not going to help ,she wont understand what you are doing it for and will quite possibly make her fear you.
Kittens and cats will often do stuff we would rather they didnt but all we can do is to either distract them with alternatives or remove temptation .
Does yout kitten have other climbing options such as cat tree's where she can climb , lots of look out spots on window sills , scratching posts ,tall ones so that she can stretch above her own head height .Also as already mentioned quality play time will help , cats tend not to play much on their own so we have to become playmates to encourage them to try out their natural instincts as in stalking/chasing/hunting / using wand toys for this usually gets the best results and will soon tire out a kitten and hopefully keep them out of trouble.
Dont be fooled though itys not only kittens that climb curtains , My young adult Ragdoll shot up the curtains chasing a spider, thankfully they were old curtains in a room that was being worked on.
 
#5 ·
I fitted a flat cats screen to the patio door and my young Tigger uses that for climbing up, not only does it stop her getting out and prevents insects coming in also gives her an apperatus to use. Upstairs I have some flat cats on the larger opening sash windows which she also likes clinging to, the flat cats mesh is strong and has resisted her tearing them and the velroc strip is plenty strong enough that she can't pull the sceen away.