Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Sloka asked in PetsCats · 5 years ago

Dealing with destructive cat?

I have asked a similar question before but did not add quite a few details. So our cat is 5 months old, we have had her for 3 1/2 months now. She is not a bad cat per say but very difficult. She bites and scratches continuously, she has tons of toys, a scratching post, treats, cat condo type thing and she uses the scratching post but still bites and scratches without warning. We clip her nails every week, that just means she uses her teeth more.Today I bent to pick up a some paper and she lunged at my hand and bit me very hard, and ran and hid under the couch (we cannot reach her). She has ripped up the couch, the blinds, books, important documents, electronics. She chewed a laptop chord, which apparently short circuited the laptop, same with our DVD player. She broke the Christmas tree ornaments, chewed the lights, brought down the entire tree twice.

We tried calming collars, nothing. She does things and as soon as I look in her direction or walk towards her, she runs and hides behind the couch, as soon as I walk away, she's back doing it.

We keep the litterbox clean but yesterday she pooped on a nice decorative Indian coffee table cloth and smeared it all over. My fiance and I are used to cats, I've had a total of 10 cats over my lifetime and my fiance grew up with them and we have never encountered a problem. We play with her everyday, but nothing has changed. She comes up to where you are and purrs and sits next to you, then bites your hand or something and runs away.

3 Answers

Relevance
  • ?
    Lv 7
    5 years ago

    I agree with the other answers, you should try to exercise your kitty more, to tire her out and burn up some of that boundless kitten energy. It will probably get better as she matures. The one thing I think you need to deal with immediately is the cord chewing. Here is a piece that I wrote in answer to a similar question:

    I would do the best I could to restrict their access to cords, obviously they can really be dangerous to a kitty if they chew through them. You can get fairly rigid spiral wraps to protect computer cables and such, and especially power cords. One normally bundles cables together, then wraps them with this material.

    Humorous aside, only slightly related: The last place I worked (I am a software engineer, so I had several computers in my office) had a bit of a fetish for neat offices, including cable management. One Monday morning we got to work to find that over the weekend, management had brought in a crew to install these spiral wraps on all the computers in the plant, and the guys doing the installation clearly had NO idea how people use computers! My mouse had about six inches of free cable, and was of course unusable. That spiral wrap ended up in the trash within half an hour. Took us that long to quit laughing at the stupidity of the whole thing!

    Our kitties are both Ocicats, and even though they did chew on things like mouse cables when they first joined us, Ocis tend to learn rules quickly, and ours now leave cables alone most of the time. We are endlessly thankful that our girls are so well behaved, they are such absolute joys!

  • ?
    Lv 6
    5 years ago

    What you have is a kitten who is being deprived of mental and physical stimulation. Cats get destructive when theyre bored! Sounds like you've tried everything BUT playing with the kitten to wear it out, which is the only thing that will work. Having toys and a tree are great, but you can't expect the kitten to entertain itself, and then get mad when it does by chewing up your laptop chord and couches. You have to physically play with the kitten. It doesn't know which toys belong to him and what things aren't toys at all like chords. My cat used to open my cabinets and break dishes. I was going to class all day and not giving him enough attention, so he acted out. A cat who's being ignored will seek attention even if it's bad. The kitten needs played with for a min of 30 mins a day, in 2 different 15 min sessions, or until it's worn out and ready to nap instead of shred the couch. No calming candles, collars ect are going to work.

  • Sara
    Lv 7
    5 years ago

    Part of this is her age. She's in that obnoxious adolescent kitten phase that drives people crazy. Time will fix some of it.

    As for the rest, if she's acting like this, she has too much energy. You need to play with her several times a day, and play until she's tired. Here's a great video that explains it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sR4CBLBgne0

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.