How to stop cats from eating plants

Video: How to Keep Cats from Destroying Your House plants l 7 Tips & Strategies 2020

Content

Steps
Method 1 of 3: How to Prevent Harmful Behaviors
Method 2 of 3: Provide Your Cat with Alternative Entertainment Options
Method 3 of 3: Choose your plant carefully
Warnings
What do you need

Cats are naturally very curious, so your favorite plants can be a serious temptation for them. Cats love to play with and even eat leaves of plants, as well as delve into the surrounding soil. For this reason, plants that are toxic to cats should never be kept at home in case the pet decides to feast on them. For example, lilies are extremely poisonous to them. But even if the plants are safe for your pet, their unwanted behavior can harm the plants and even kill them! Fortunately, there are a number of steps you can take to minimize the potential damage to your plants.

Steps

Method 1 of 3: How to Prevent Harmful Behaviors

1 Hang the plants from the ceiling in a planter. At your garden supply store, you can purchase special planters for plants that hang from the ceiling with hooks. Plants hanging from the ceiling not only look attractive, but they are also well protected from cats!
2 Spray the plants with cat repellent. You can get a repellent spray at your pet store. It won't harm your pet, but it will keep it from getting close to your plants. Doctor Vic Spray is a good example of a safe remedy, but be sure to read the label of the repellant you buy carefully. Many repellents should not be applied to plants as they can harm them.
- You can also make your own repellent. Mix 1 part vinegar with 3 parts water and spray this solution onto the plant leaves. Cats hate the smell of vinegar, and the solution prepared on its basis does not harm the plants!
3 Teach your cat not to touch the plants. This is best done through remote punishment. The idea is to give the cat a bad association with approaching plants, such as spraying water on its face. Nevertheless, the pet should not be allowed to have an associative connection between punishment and you... It is necessary to make the cat think that the punishment came out of nowhere.
- Plants can be protected using a kind of trap from a compressed air cylinder, which is sprayed when the motion sensor is triggered. Similar training aids for cats can be purchased at some pet stores or ordered online.
- When the cat approaches the plant, a jet of compressed air will begin to spray on it. This will not do any harm to the pet, but it will make him think twice before approaching the plant again.
4 Don't personally punish the cat. For example, if you splash water at your cat or yell at it, it will begin to associate punishment with you. She may even stop touching plants while you are nearby, but will probably continue to do so when you are not in the room. Punishing the cat personally actually makes the animal even more "dishonest." In addition, the cat may become afraid of you, and this is not the attitude that you expect from your pet.
5 Surround the plants with a texture that is unpleasant for the cat. Spread foil or spiky plastic rugs around the plants. The cat may not want to step on unpleasant surfaces in order to get to the plants.
6 Use noise to scare the cat away. Collect and wash empty food cans (whether from vegetables or drinks). Place them along the edge of the table where you are holding the plants, then place a second row of cans on top to create a wall. When the cat jumps onto the table and knocks over the cans, the rumble they make will cause the animal to quickly retreat. After a strong fright, the pet will think twice whether he should approach the plants.
7 Try sprinkling the ground around the plants with lion dung repellent. As strange as it sounds, a remedy like Silent Roar contains lion excrement. Despite the fact that you yourself will not feel it, your cat will definitely notice the lion's smell, which will inform her that a strong unfamiliar animal has already declared its rights not to be a plant as part of its territory.

Method 2 of 3: Provide Your Cat with Alternative Entertainment Options

1 Understand the causes of harmful cat behavior. Perhaps your pet is extremely bored just sitting at home. If the wiggling leaves serve as the closest reminder of prey or toys to a cat, it should come as no surprise that they are attracted to them. To effectively contain your pet's harmful plant-related activities, you need to provide it with healthier alternative entertainment options.
2 Play with your cat regularly. Some cat breeds are much more active than others, but only you yourself can understand how much play your pet needs. However, there is a general rule that you need to play with your cat at least twice a day for 5-10 minutes.
3 Use toys that will make your cat move. While your cat will love your every attention, don't let play time turn into a simple hug with your pet. You need to give your pet the opportunity to get excited and unwind through play, so that he does not have the urge to nibble your plants.
- Use fishing rod toys to get your cat to run from one corner of the room to the next without spending much of your own effort.
- Not all cats play with laser pointers, but if your pet is interested in such games, you're in luck! You can just sit on the couch and enjoy a bite to eat while your cat scurries across the floor trying to catch the elusive spot!
4 Leave toys for your cat when you leave the house. A cat can get especially bored when no one is around to keep her company. By keeping cats alone with toys, they can find a healthier outlet for excess energy and boredom than chewing plants.
- Change toys periodically to avoid annoying your cat. The cat will simply start to ignore the toy that it has already become very familiar with.
- However, if the old toy reappears after a long break, the kosha will play with it again with delight.

Method 3 of 3: Choose your plant carefully

1 Pay attention to your cat's plant preferences. See which plants are most attracted to your cat and avoid purchasing them in the future.
- For example, a cat may like plants with narrow, drooping leaves that sway in a draft.
- In this case, purchase plants with large, heavy leaves that will no longer be so attractive for the cat to decide to play with them.
2 Avoid buying plants that are especially attractive to cats. For example, yucca is especially tempting for cats and your pet will chew on it without any regret. Zinnias and marigolds are another example of "magnet plants" that should be avoided.
- If you already have a plant at home that your cat cannot resist, keep it on a high shelf where the pet simply cannot reach. Make sure that the selected shelf is really inaccessible to the cat and it cannot jump into it dexterously.
3 Place decoy plants around the house. A cat's cravings for certain plants can be used to your advantage. Arrange trays of catnip or grass for your pet. Their presence will allow the cat to satisfy the need to chew grass and, I would like to believe, will distract her from more valuable plants.
4 Buy plants that your cat doesn't like. Some plant species are simply inedible to cats. They often have a distinct aroma (lavender, rosemary and citrus). While you may like the smell of these plants, it will also stop your cat from chewing on them.
- You can also buy plants for your home that have leaves too high for your cat to reach, such as small trees.

Warnings

Never spray plants or the ground around them with anything that could harm your cat, such as hot sauce. It can scare the cat away, but it can also get on its fur, in the eyes and spoil its vision (up to and including its loss).
For the safety of your cat, only use a veterinarian approved product. Also, always spray only a small area of the plant first with a repellant spray before spraying it all over to make sure it is not harmful to the plant.
Find a list of plants that are poisonous to cats (you can find it on the Internet) and do not keep similar indoor flowers at home, even in places that are potentially inaccessible to a cat. Cats are sometimes able to jump where you could not even think, and squeeze into tight spaces that seem safe to them. To prevent the pet from accidentally poisoning, it is better to refuse toxic plants.
You can scare cats away from plant pots with the help of mothballs placed in them. However, the mothballs are toxic, and the cat can be seriously poisoned and even die if they consume the substances contained in the balls. If you decide to use mothballs, place them in a container with holes so that the repelling smell spreads and the cat does not have direct access to the balls themselves.