Conference misery::feline_v1

Hi Denise,
I just got a kitten too and I plan to have a tree. What I've done in the
past was to get a VERY strong tree stand and if the tree was the least
bit wobbly to also tie some rope around it and anchor it to the walls.
That way if the kitten climbs the tree it doesn't fall over and hurt the
kitten. And for the first few hours the tree is up, stay around and let
the kitten know that tree climbing is not appreciated. 

My mother always has a few non-breakable bells that she puts on the
bottom branches of her tree and the cats seem very content to play
with those and leave the rest of the tree alone. Of course, don't
use lots of tinsel, bad for kitties.
kris

The first year we had Gray and put up our Christmas tree, I went to the local
Five and Dime (I know, you can't find one of those anymore....) and bought
a squirt gun. It worked beautifully. Gray never did figure out how she kept
getting wet, except that every time she went near the tree, water came out
of nowhere and caught her. It only took a couple of squirts, and she gave
the tree a VERY wide berth (it worked with the dog as well!). That lesson
has remained effective over the past six years - she never has bothered the
tree since that first time.

/Harry

     Christmas trees are very popular with my six cats.  I have stopped 
using tinsel after one nasty experience when my oldest starting eating it.
We tie the tree to the ceiling with fish line and no longer have any
breakable decorations.  Two years ago I started tying all of the decorations to
the tree with thread rather than hooks.  It is a lot of work but I don't have
to worry about any one getting hurt by the hooks.  After the tree has been
up for a week it starts to look messy because everyone has to play with the
bulbs and sit it the branches, but what the heck.  They have a good time and
it's only for a couple weeks a year.

     There are some products on the market which are used in the water you
put in the tree stand to keep the tree fresher longer.  We don't dare use them
just in case it is poisonous.  We don't want the cats drinking it.  Also, I
believe that holly is poisonous if eaten.  Is it true?

     Hope this helps!

        
                                   Diane

Holly is indeed poisonous, as is mistletoe.  One kind of evergreen is
also poisonous, I think the Japanese Yew???  Other trees are not
poisonous, although eating the sharp needles is not a good idea.

Oh, Poinsettas are poisonous too.

Lucky our hobby is collecting hand-made wooden ornaments, and we are
going to use the small light bulbs this year.  (Also our first Christmas
with cats, and Izzy will be 5 months old then.)    If we put the glass
ornaments higher up on the tree, will they be safe?  I thought of putting
the tree up on a box so arranged that there is no place on the top of
the box to stand from which further advances up the tree would be
possible.

Of course he could always jump across from the window sill.  Oh, well.

Figaro never tried climbing the tree.  She is more interested in mauling
the bows on the packages.  As a matter of fact, when the presents go under
the tree, they don't have bows until just before I'm ready to hand them
out.  A couple of presents have gone out with mangled bows, - Merry Christmas
from Figaro.

I agree that tinsel and kitties don't mix.  I string popcorn and cranberries
instead.  If she happens to nibble on a stale piece of popcorn, it won't
hurt her, and the tree looks so pretty.

  ^_^
 (>.<)
  ) (

Jeannie

    Yeah, we tried the old popcorn and cranberries trick.  Ha!  After a few
days, all we had was string and some forlorn looking cranberries with all
the popcorn in between eaten away.  I think we'll skip that this year,  I
think it just attracts them to the tree.

    I have a great picture that I've considered making Christmas cards out
of.  I came home one day around last Christmas to find the tree at a 45 degree
angle and Gandalf calmly sitting in the upper branches.  Fortunately, I had
a camera handy.  

    Paul, I don't think putting the tree on a box will help, it'll just make
the tree that much easier to knock over.  I'd save the glass ornaments at
least until next year when you'll have a better idea of how the kitties will
react to the tree.

    Of course our kitties (or at least some of them) are more rambunctious
than most, so you may want to take this with a grain of salt.

tlh

A lot of good advice in the responses here. Things I'd reccomend as minimum 
precautions (at least for this first year).

	1. Tie the tree up so that it wont fall (this isn't as hard as it 
sounds - It doesn't have to survive a hurricane)

	2. Use non-breakable ornaments on at least the lower branches (remeber
kitty can be quite tall when standing on his/her hind legs!!)

	3. use a good (read wide) tree stand

	4. if you have any breakable "heirlooms" - don't use them this year!
(i.e. if you can't bear to have it broken - don't put it on!)

	5. be around for a while with kitty after its put up to try to 
discourage climbing (depends on how "obedient" the cat is!)



	But, even with all the precautions, HAVE A TREE!!!!


	/s/	Bob

re:.7:

"have a tree"

Definitely!  But remember it doesn't HAVE to be the basic evergreen type.
With a 22-lb. wonder pawing around (the Fuj), I avoided the hassle of
having him explore every little thing about the tree by decorating, very
simply, a 6-ft ficus which, in other seasons, is just a ficus.

At Christmas, (I still have this tree, it's 6ft+ now, and nice and
full), I string teeny little lights on it (not much weight, and very
little heat), and very tiny little ornaments (the kind you use to
make wreaths, with the 4-feet of florist wire attached.)  That way
I get seasonal decor with minimal hassle (never any pine needles to
vacuum up, and I don't have to worry about it drying out, not with
a full root system), and Fuji isn't tempted to explore.

re:  the response about the squirt gun:

a plant mister on "stream" works like a charm, too.  The greater
distance between you and puddytat the better, they don't seem to
catch on to the source of the monsoon.

Good luck!

--E.

An alternate way to keep the tree from tipping over:  we have a tree
stand with three very long (18" ?) legs.  We put an unopened 10-lb.
bag of cat sand on each leg and then cover with a tree skirt so you
can't see them.  Our cats no longer try to climb the tree (they are
eight and ten years old now), but when they were younger they did,
and the cat sand kept it from tipping over.  When we lived in a
condiminium with a shag carpet, we also used to nail the tree stand
to the floor through the carpet.  This doesn't work as well with a
plush carpet (which we have in our current house) - it's harder to
hide the holes in the carpet.

We also have a cat who eats bows - interestingly enough, his name
is Beau (short for Beauregard - good name for a cat born in Atlanta,
right?).  We have taken to just using flat ribbon and Christmas seals
to decorate the packages; we can also get away with yarn.  We usually
put bows on a few packages, expecting to sacrifice them to Beau, because
he enjoys it so much!

Enjoy Christmas with your kitty!
Jane

Our tree stand is quite heavy duty.  I was going to get a piece of plywood,
about 3 feet square, and nail the stand to that.  This will prevent
the metal legs from sinking into the plushy rug and marring the rug
and allowing the tree to tip.  Now that you suggest it, I will put
some cat-sand bags on there as as well, and a skirt over the whole
thing.  (The plywood will also protect the floor from water spilled
out of the little bowl the tree stands in.)

Josh and Becky were 9 months old when they celebrated their first Christmas.
Being indoor cats, there is nowhere for them to vent their energy, except
by racing around the apartment.  Because of their boisterous natures (at
21 months they still haven't settled down!) I decided to leave my tree up
for a day or two undecorated.  This gave me a chance to see if I would have
to result to anchoring the tree to the nearest bookcase.  I guess I was fairly
lucky - after chewing on a branch, J & B decided the tree wasn't worth the
effort.

The one basic precaution I did take was that I got a heavy-duty tree stand.
I think it takes trunks up to 5" in diameter, and the legs spread out pretty
far.  It also has 4 legs instead of the more precarious 3. 

Our old family cat, who unfortunately will not be joining us this year, enjoyed
20 Christmases of sleeping under the most inaccessible part of the tree.
He tried climbing it once, but never tried again after it fell on him.  

Such are my experiences - Good luck and have a merry...

Kathy

I've had (or my family's had) quite a series of cats over the past 29
years, and in all that time I can remember ONE, I think, who ever attempted
to climb a Christmas tree.  Many played with ornaments hung on lower 
branches (many's the time when cleaning up after Christmas we'd discover
an ornament under a chair or in some distant corner), and we had one who
consistently ate tinsel but, surprisingly, never seemed to suffer for it.

The major problem I have with my current two, neither of whom I had as
kittens (one is now 5 or so, the other 2-1/2), is ribbon-chewing.  They
go for bows made out of curling ribbon.  The obvious solution is to use
ready-made bows or some such.  However, sometimes I like to use curling 
ribbon, and I just have to keep a close eye on things and occasionally 
replace the ribbon on a package.  C'est la vie.

We've also had cats who drank the tree water.  None ever suffered ill
effects from that (we don't add anything to the water), but it can be
irritating to have to water the tree constantly.  I've solved that problem
by either (a) getting a tree stand that has a narrow opening at the top
(just big enough for a tree trunk) and has a hole for pouring water through,
so the cats can't get at it, or (b) making sure the tree skirt comes all
the way up to the tree trunk, covering the stand completely.   Of course,
that can make watering a little difficult, but that's the way it goes.

All the suggestions offered in previous replies seem like good ones.
Good luck with your tree!
							-- Nina

One problem that cats can have involves eating tinsel or thin ribbon.  It
acts as a "string foreign body" and can actually saw through the intestine
resulting in peritonitis.  If you like tinsel on the tree, its best to keep
it at least three feet from the floor.  Signs include depression and 
vomiting.  Occasionally a cat has a string hanging from the rectum.  DON'T
PULL IT!!!  You can do more damage that way.

Jody Kaufman, D.V.M.

    Welcome Jody!  I wondered how long it would be before Roger lured 
you in here.  :-)

tlh

        In re .14: 

        Actually, it wasn't hard.  I just asked if she wanted to see a
        note which asked about cats and Christmas trees. 

        (Psst!  I think I've created a noter!  What do I do now? :-) 

					-- Roger

re.-1
	Get another terminal, Modem and phone line (that's assuming you want 
to continue yourself!!).

	/s/	Bob

Incidentally, a corollary to the cats-eating-tinsel-off-the-tree problem
is cats-licking-tinsel-off-their-fur-that's-stuck-on-by-static-electricity.
Last fall, I acquired a Persian cat, and when he walked by the Christmas
tree, the static electricity attracted tinsel to his fur, sometimes pulling
the tinsel off the tree.  He didn't try to eat tinsel from the tree, but
naturally he tried to get it off his fur.  I guess a solution, besides
putting the tinsel higher on the tree, would be to try and reduce the
amount of static electricity.  We have a humidifier this year, so I'll
see whether that alleviates the static problem.

It was amusing, though, to watch all the tinsel "lean" towards Jasper as he
strolled by the Christmas tree...!
							-- Nina

Another idea is to get a live Christmas tree--they rarely tip over since
they have that large tub of dirt.  However, some unmannerly felines may decide
the dirt's a fine place to scratch, and then you have to take measures to
prevent this.

Two thoughts....

By all means use unbreakable ornaments, at least on the bottom half of the
tree, but beware: not all unbreakable ornaments are created equal!  A couple
of years ago, I used a kind which is essentially a styrofoam ball with colored
thread wrapped around it.  The stuff is wrapped on pretty tight, but not
tight enough to keep claws from unravelling it!  Luckily, I came home just
in time to see Mr. Pigge starting to swallow the thread & quickly eliminated
the problem.  We now use plastic ornaments with their own "hangers" molded
on.  They're a little hard to find, but they look almost like the glass
type & provide much more peace of mind.

Also, for all human moms & dads out in noteland, remember that all of the
eating_the_ornaments and tree_tipping_over cautions apply just as much to
toddlers as they do to cats (as our 15-month-old constantly reminds us!)


Safe happy & merry to all!

-Frank

I can imagine that tinsel wouldn't be too good for cats (we don't have
a Christmas tree since we are Jewish - Chanukah bush, anyone?) since
it has sharp edges.  String doesn't seem to be too bad, though.  One
night we had beef rolls for dinner (filled, I think, with an egg and
vegetable mixture), and being either lazy or in a hurry or both I tossed
the strings that had tied the rolls into the kitchen trash rather than
taking them put to the garage as I usually do with trash I think the
cats are going to be extra-interested in (such as bones).  When we got
home from wherever it was we went that night, all of the strings were
in messy little piles on Nebula's favorite chair cushion (which, luckily,
has long since been sprayed with a water-proofing spray - Neb has the
Siamese digestive tract as well as the voice).  Neb had apparently
climbed into the wastebasket and fetched and eaten all the strings (covered
with nice beef drippings).  The strings, like most things that she eats
that don't agree with her (grasshoppers, for instance, sigh!), came out
again within an hour or so - she was fine when we got home about three
hours later, except from being aprehensive about what was going to happen to
her for throwing up on the chair again.  Since then, though, such stuff
has been faithfully taken out of cat range before the humans leave!

One hint I got was to hang orange peel around the bottom branches.  
The reasoning behind this is that the citrus smell repels the cats
and they stay away from the tree.  If anyone tries this (I might just
get a tree now myself after hearing this..) let me know if it works.

An "unsecured" tree at my place would probably last about 5 minutes..

Paula

   You might be surprised at how well an "unsupported" tree will stand up.
We have 6 hellions who *broke* an artificial tree.  
 
   We got a nice sturdy real tree (about 6 1/2 feet tall with a trunk 4 or
5 inches in diameter) and put it in a sturdy base (metal with *4* legs.
don't use 3 legged stands. they are inherently unstable.).

   The tree has been up since Sunday with no damage.  (We occasionally have
to put an ornament back on the tree but that's no sweat.  We use only cloth
ornaments anyway.)  This is not for lack of trying.  We've seen Gandalf (a
full grown male *in* the tree at eye-level (human eye-level that is) and
the tree shook a little but didn't even sway.  

   tlh

We always had plastic trees.  The cats would play with ornaments on low 
branches, but they never tried climbing it.  I imagine that wire "branches" 
don't provide much support; it must be rather like climbing a coat hanger.

Steve

P.S. Don't get on my back about having a phony tree - I am allergic to 
evergreens!

A couple of notes on xmas trees from a breeder

Please be careful with live trees.  I have seen cats (of friends and
clients) have to undergo surgery for perforation of the intestines
due to eating pine needles.  The plastic and metallic icicles are
even worse.

I have watched my abyssinian kittens dismantle a fake tree (with the
plastic multi-limb branches).  No damage to the cats, but several to the 
decorations.  (also several to the cats when my wife saw the destruction 
of her relatively clean room).

My adult Maine Coon male currently likes to sleep about 4 feet up
in our current fake with metal branches

    I KNOW THIS IS A YEAR LATE, BUT ANYWAY....  WE HAVE AN 8 MONTH OLD
    ALL BLACK MANX NAMED SOUCHE (INTRODUCED IN EARLIER NOTE).  THIS
    WAS HER FIRST CHRISTMAS AND I WAS VERY ANXIOUS ABOUT HER BEHAVIOR
    WHEN IT CAME TO THE TREE.  WE PUT THE TREE UP, DECORATED WITH REAL
    AND PLASTICE BULBS AND OF COURSE TINSEL.  SOUCHE SNIFFED, WALKED
    AROUND AND BATTED BUT DID NOT ATTEMPT TO CLIMB.  WHEN SHE WENT FOR
    THE WATER IN THE BASE, I SPRAYED HER WITH MY TRUSTY WATER BOTTLE.
    THIS WAS REPEATED 3 MORE TIMES IN THE COURSE OF THE SAME EVENING.
    BUT, AFTER THE THIRD SPRAYING, SHE DID NOT GO NEAR THE TREE AGAIN.
    THE TREE IS STILL UP AND WILL REMAIN SO UNTIL NEW YEAR'S DAY AND
    SHE HAS NOT MADE ANOTHER MOVE TOWARD THE TREE, SHE JUST SITS ON
    THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM AND ADMIRES THE LIGHTS AND DECORATIONS.
    SPRAYING SOUCHE HAS TAKEN CARE OF ANY UNWANTED PROBLEMS WE MAY HAVE
    COME ACROSS SINCE WE GOT HER, WHICH WAS AT THE RIPE OLD AGE OF 6
    WEEKS.  SHE IS THE BEST BEHAVED CAT I HAVE EVER OWNED.  TRY SPRAYING,
    IT MAY SAVE A TREE AND A CAT.
    

    RE  .25
    
    >AND OF COURSE TINSEL
    
    NO, NO, A THOUSAND TIMES 'NO'.

    I know its very late but if anyone out there has a tree like we
    used to at home (ie: real live tree with roots in earth) WATCH OUT.
    
    Indoor only cats may be less interested but Smokey, an OUTDOOR/indoor
    cat's reaction seemed to be: "How considerate.  They've brought
    in a bit of the garden so I don't have to go outside for the loo
    in this cold weather."  Until you've located the smell it isn't
    as obvious a place to check as it may seem, and I definately prefer
    the scent of pine any day.

    You also have to be careful because animals get worms from the earth
    around the tree!  I had that problem, and it took us forever to
    figure out how an inside cat came up with them. The vet verified
    it as a fairly common problem.
    
    Gary