# Help with energetic cat!



## Kurea (Jan 11, 2013)

Hello everyone,

My boyfriend and I have adopted a kitten last year and she has now grown into a 1 year and 3 months old cat. Though we love her to bits she drives us crazy with her behaviour and we've run out of ideas on how to deal with her in ways that are good for both her and us. On that note I turn to the community here in hopes of getting some advice from more experienced cat owners.

She attacks and destroys all types of exposed fabric, carpets, doormats, strings,(power!)cables and basically anything she can manage to get her teeth into despite our best efforts to discourage such behaviour. We have hidden and protected everything we could but there's nothing we can do about the surfaces\objects that remain exposed.

We try to play with her as much as we can but she seems to have far more energy than the both of us combined and eventhough she has a scratching pad and a cat tree on opposite sides of the house for her scratching needs, she tends to prefer other surfaces and only uses them on occasion.


She is an indoor cat due to environmental circumstances, we live in an apartment building with a busy road 1 meter away from our front door & window and with a kids playground at the back, sadly the people in this neighbourhood are not at all pet friendly and it wouldn't be safe to let her out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated


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## scooper163 (Jan 14, 2013)

hi Im not very experienced as I only had my kittens for 3weeks but from what I have read I think your cat is bored....Im sure someone with more experience will correct me if im wrong....


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## spid (Nov 4, 2008)

First question - is she neutered?
Second question - what to you feed her - a lot of cats can get hyper active on foods that contains a lot of grains, sugars or additives?


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Hi Kurea It sounds as though your kitty-cat has loads of energy which she needs to express in play activities, and is not able to do so atm, so she is frustrated and bored. (I wonder if by chance she is a Bengal, or Bengal-cross, as they are known for having masses of energy!)

As she is an indoor cat you need to provide loads of exercise opportunities for her, to compensate for her lack of being able to run, jump and climb outdoors. It is important to use plenty of the vertical space in the apartment as well as horizontal space.

So I would put a large, tall cat tree in every room of the house she is allowed access to (apart from the bathroom!). Zooplus has some good ones, reasonably priced, which come as flatpacks, for you to put together yourself. 
Choose ones with wide bases as they are more stable. Or else fasten one side of the tree to the wall to stabilise.

As well as that, there is a wonderful floor-to-ceiling carpet-covered climbing pole with hidey holes, made by Hi-cat, which is absolutely ideal for indoor cats who have lots of energy to use up. See link for photo:

Hicat® | Gallery

Although these Hi-cat climbers are expensive, in the long run it could save you a lot of money as well as plenty of heartache if it stops your cat destroying your carpets and furniture. I would get one myself without hesitation if I had an active indoor cat. (One of our members actually made her own ceiling climber similar to the hi-cat one, but at a fraction of the cost, using the cardboard inner tube from a roll of carpet, No Nails glue and a carpet offcut. So if you or your bf are good at DIY, perhaps give it a go?!)

In addition to cat trees for her climb, I would put up some shelves at different heights up the walls, like steps, so she can climb, and perch high up, even snooze up there.

Do you have interactive toys such as wands with feathers, as well as fishing rod toys such as Da Bird? If so, get her jumping around chasing these, as that will use up energy. Also get ping pong balls for you to throw for her to chase.

Diet-wise -- keep her on a high protein diet, low in carbohydrates (most dry food contains lots of carbs), as carbs will make her hyperactive. Protein is digested slowly (as the cat's digestive system is designed to do) and this diet will keep her calmer.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on


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## Kurea (Jan 11, 2013)

Thank you everyone for the quick replies.

Yes she has been neutered already and has quite a lot of toys (think there are dozens of ping pong balls stuck under the furniture already for example) but she's bored of all of them. A new toy lasts a week or two after which she ignores it completely.

We'll look into building something for her to climb and scratch on since we can't really afford one of those really tall ready-built cat trees.

As for her diet, she eats Purina ONE Indoor, it was the only decent food we found so far, most shops here just have Friskies and Whiskas which as far as we've read are total rubbish.


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## scooper163 (Jan 14, 2013)

I got my cat tree from ebay n my kittys love it. It cost me £26 + £3.99 for delivery.


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## Kurea (Jan 11, 2013)

scooper163 said:


> I got my cat tree from ebay n my kittys love it. It cost me £26 + £3.99 for delivery.


Wow, that looks huge .. you got a very nice deal on it, do you remember what seller you bought it from?


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## auspiciousmind (Sep 2, 2012)

scooper163 said:


> I got my cat tree from ebay n my kittys love it. It cost me £26 + £3.99 for delivery.


How did you manage to get that for that!! I've been looking on ebay for that one and the cheapest I've found it is for about £53?!!! *jealous*


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## scooper163 (Jan 14, 2013)

seller is lacelake. this one was on auction but there are others like this that you can buy for £30 with no pp so works out the same lol took weeks to find this as I also could not afford the very expensive ones but this is great for £30 and my babies love it


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

Not sure if it is as easy to get the "bits" in Romania but you could try building your own version of the "hi-cat" pole. See the link below......
http://www.petforums.co.uk/cat-chat/283679-i-built-paddypaws-cat-pole.html


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## Paddypaws (May 4, 2010)

buffie said:


> Not sure if it is as easy to get the "bits" in Romania but you could try building your own version of the "hi-cat" pole. See the link below......
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/cat-chat/283679-i-built-paddypaws-cat-pole.html


I _really_ cant take the credit for the cat pole....it is a direct copy of the Hi-cat one!
If you want both space-saving and cheap though, it really does come out trumps and my cats LOVE it.
How about going one step further and providing some of these wall mounted poles too?
Cat playground for my two moggies and Bengal kitten - YouTube
By the way you have my sympathy.....I have 7 'normal' cats and one Millie.....she tires out all of the others one by one and then keeps on going....and she LOVES to smash/chew/rip/destroy things.


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

Paddypaws said:


> *I really cant take the credit for the cat pole....it is a direct copy of the Hi-cat one*!
> If you want both space-saving and cheap though, it really does come out trumps and my cats LOVE it.
> How about going one step further and providing some of these wall mounted poles too?
> Cat playground for my two moggies and Bengal kitten - YouTube
> By the way you have my sympathy.....I have 7 'normal' cats and one Millie.....she tires out all of the others one by one and then keeps on going....and she LOVES to smash/chew/rip/destroy things.


Of course you can ,you maybe copied the design,but you put it all together and it was a fraction of the cost :thumbsup:


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## Paddypaws (May 4, 2010)

buffie said:


> Of course you can ,you maybe copied the design,but you put it all together and it was a fraction of the cost :thumbsup:


oh, ok then....shall we call it the PPP4P....PaddyPawsPole for Pennies???


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

Paddypaws said:


> oh, ok then....shall we call it the PPP4P....PaddyPawsPole for Pennies???


Sounds good to me


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## Jansheff (Jan 31, 2011)

I'd certainly recommend having a go at making the cat pole. My two Burmese are very energetic, in fact I'd say more like bonkers, and they are also indoor cats. They absolutely LOVE the cat pole, it took them a day or two of being quite cautious about it but now they are up and down it dozens of times a day. They even both run up at the same time and bat at each other when they're at the top. It's fun for us too - we really enjoy watching them, whenever we hear their little feet clawing their way up the pole, we all turn round and watch them! I've got the same cat tree as someone posted a pic of a few replies back and I have positioned my pole right next to the tree so they have something to jump on to when they're up it. 

My Burmese are beggars for chewing as well, I always keep a good strong cardboard box around and this saves them chewing furniture. Cats love boxes and will play in them for ages, mine chew them as well, when they get too chewed I just chuck them out and put a new one out. 

The other obvious thing to me is to get another cat for your girl to play with. I have three all together and I'm sure the two Burmese would totally trash the house if they didn't have each other to play with and use up all their energy on. They chase, wrestle, play fight, play 'ambush and pounce', then curl up together when they've tired themselves out. It's great fun to watch.

You're lucky really, having an energetic cat, it's much more fun and entertaining than one that lies there and doesn't move all day. You just need to find a channel for that energy.


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## Kurea (Jan 11, 2013)

Thank you all for your ideas and pictures/videos, they're great for inspiration  We'll try to build a playground for her, so far we've bought a few more ping pong balls and a small carpet as a short term solution since it will take some time to build something big for her.

Not too sure about getting another cat for her to play with, to be honest I'm a bit worried they'll team up to completely destroy the place .. but it's something we'll think about. 



Jansheff said:


> You're lucky really, having an energetic cat, it's much more fun and entertaining than one that lies there and doesn't move all day. You just need to find a channel for that energy.


We're happy to have her as energetic as she is, I do agree that it's more fun like this than just watching her lie around the house doing nothing, but we simply ran out of ideas on what to do with all that energy .. until now at least


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## AlexTurley (Oct 30, 2011)

heyy,

with her toys have u tried rotating them so hiding a bunch of them in a box tucked in the cupboard and then giving it a spritz with some cat nip or use some dried cat nip or valerian and then giving it back to her after shes had a break from it? 

iv got a indoor bengal - just the one he has huge amounts of energy and always waits till im home to release it haha 
but this little trick works with him there like a brand new toy again. 
(fingers crossed he doesnt realise im talkin about him as he has just crashed out at the end of my bed ) 
has she also got toys she can play with on her own things like circuits? or a treat ball and add some her dried biscuits into there so she has to work for her food. or even heffin got for xmas teddys - as he loves to play rough and tumble with them (just human teddys) 
 have lots of fun with her xxx


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## Kurea (Jan 11, 2013)

I actually just found some catnip extract to use on some of her toys, so far it seems to be working.

I'll have to look for one of those treat balls like you suggested, see if that keeps her occupied for a while, she does have some toys she can play with or wrestle on her own, no circuits though.


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