# Cat climbing on curtains.. help!



## lalalalana (Jul 4, 2017)

Hi All,

I've had to open an account because I'm at my wits end.

My 11 month old cat (Scully) will not stop swinging off the curtains - she does a little roar and then up she goes! The problem is, my curtain pole is now hanging out of the wall and she seems to like peeling the plaster away from the hole haha.

I've put tinfoil on the windowsill, she loves it and lies on it. I've put it on the curtains and it does seem to stop her from climbing on them but I feel like a bit of a weirdo with tinfoil on my curtains! And she just starts peeling the paint and plaster off the wall instead.

She has about 50 toys, 5 scratching posts, a scratching box and another cat (Mulder) who she is very good friends with (they love each other). She's an indoor cat, but I play with them all of the time and she has shelves to climb on etc.

Does anybody have any suggestions as to how I can stop her? She also never uses the scratching posts (she did when she was a kitten, now doesn't). She is due to get spayed this month (even though the cats are called Mulder and Scully they are both females don't worry!), will that help?

She's a lovely little girl but is so much more wild than my older cat!

Thank you for your help!


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Hi @lalalalana and welcome 

Lots of kittens love climbing curtains (all mine have!) but by the time they get to 11 months old most have usually stopped. It could be the case that Scully's lively behaviour is due to her not being spayed.

Is there any particular reason why she is being spayed so late? 5 or 6 months is the usual age for spaying cats who are not intended for breeding. These days some experts are recommending spaying at 4 months old, before sexual maturity takes effect. Being unspayed and not mated she will keep coming into call, which is stressful for her, and with each new episode the risk of the womb infection Pyometra increases. Untreated this infection can be fatal. 

Plus there is the risk that an indoors unspayed female cat will do their best to escape to find a mate. So please be super careful with opening doors, windows too (in the warm weather) to avoid her escaping. She will almost certainly come home pregnant if she does escape. If she finds her way home at all.

I would book her in to be spayed without any delay. Vets generally prefer to do the op when the cat is not in call, so if she goes into call prior to the spay appointment, postpone the date for a week after the call has finished.

Spaying may calm Scully down a bit (after a few weeks) but as she has the habit of climbing your curtains she may continue for a while. So your best options are to do away with the curtains for now and buy some inexpensive blinds until Scully is older and calmer. Or tie your curtains back, away from the window sill. If they are floor length curtains tie them back in the kind of loop style that lifts the bottom part of the curtains off the floor.

It is always best when trying to train a cat not to do something, to, at the same time, provide a suitable alternative the cat can be redirected to. Scully is evidently a cat who loves to climb, so I strongly advise buying a couple of ceiling high cat trees for her to climb. Zooplus has some inexpensive ones:

http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/scratching_posts/ceiling_scratching_trees

These cat climbers from Hicat are wonderful, most cats adore them, but they are very expensive unfortunately.

http://www.hicat.co.uk/product-overview/

But if you are OK with simple DIY it's possible to make something similar to the Hicat pole for a fraction of the cost, using the cardboard inner tube from a roll of carpet (carpet stores give them away free), and cover it completely in an offcut of new carpet using an industrial staple gun and No More Nails Glue. Make it tall enough to wedge in place under the ceiling.


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## lalalalana (Jul 4, 2017)

Hi,

Thank you for your response.

Scully has a few tree cat posts already, she never uses them. I'm going to try the catnip trick and see if I can get her interested, but when we are financially able to I'm going to get her some cat shelves as I think this may be good for her. I will look into the ceiling high cat posts though, she may like these.

I know we should have got her spayed earlier, we have been struggling financially but have enough money/have booked her in this month (please don't judge, I know the consequences but it wasn't possible any earlier unfortunately). My vet doesn't mind whether she is in heat or not and we had no issues with my other cat. We are very careful when opening windows (in fact I only open a window I'm sat near so I can keep my eye on her) and I only open the back door when the kitchen door is shut. 

She's the wild child of the cat family haha! 

Thank you for your help, I'll be trying all of your suggestions out and little Scully is going to be getting spayed this month.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Just wanted to add that if money is an issue you can alway ask your local Cats Protection about vouchers to help towards the cost of neutering/spaying. 

Yes, do try rubbing the cat scratch posts with cat nip, it does usually help. But it is the exercise of climbing I think she will enjoy with the ceiling high cat trees.


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## Bertie'sMum (Mar 27, 2017)

I was once told that cats don't climb curtains to be naughty, but because they get a better view from high up !

With one of my previous cats I did find that a mix of Oil of Citronella and water sprayed on the curtains did stop the climbing/shredding. Cats don't like the faint citrussy smell but it's completely harmless and cheaper than store bought equivalents.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Missysmum2 said:


> I was once told that cats don't climb curtains to be naughty, but because they get a better view from high up !
> 
> With one of my previous cats I did find that a mix of Oil of Citronella and water sprayed on the curtains did stop the climbing/shredding. Cats don't like the faint citrussy smell but it's completely harmless and cheaper than store bought equivalents.


I am afraid the smell of oil of citronella would drive me out of the room! :Yuck LOL.

Cats climb curtains because they like climbing, Climbing is instinctive behaviour inherited from their ancestors. Their ancestors would often have climbed trees to get away from their predators or if they were chased by another cat. Often cats would have slept on branches high up in the trees, because it was safer and they could watch for passing predators.

I don't believe cats actually do anything just to be naughty - all their behaviour is driven by need, whether for survival, self-protection, hunting practice, hunger, exercising their limbs, scent marking with claws to protect territory, or protecting their resources etc.

Cats are great opportunists, hence one reason for the great success of their species, so for example, if one leaves a cooked chicken out on a worktop one can't be surprised if the cats help themselves to it, that would be normal instinctive behaviour, not naughtiness.

Being desert animals in origin our cats ancestors would also have climbed rocks and cliffs skilfully. Two of my current cats escaped through an upstairs fanlight window one evening years ago, a few months after I adopted them. They climbed on to the roof of the house and ran up and down the steep slopes like a pair of mountain goats ! :Arghh I nearly had a heart attack trying to get them down! At one point even considered calling out the Fire Service with their cherry picker. It took about half an hour to talk them down, but felt like an eternity. 

No more chances taken after that - I bought cat nets for all my windows so none of them can escape onto the roof now.


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## Bertie'sMum (Mar 27, 2017)

chillminx said:


> I am afraid the smell of oil of citronella would drive me out of the room! :Yuck LOL.


because the oil is so concentrated you only need a very few drops in about 300ml of water (well shaken) - I've barely been able to smell it (just a slight lemony fragrance) certainly a lot less stronger than some of the commercial ones currently available.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Very pleased to hear it's milder than some of the commercially available ones as those are truly vile!! :Vomit The smell gives me a migraine.


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## Bertie'sMum (Mar 27, 2017)

chillminx said:


> Very pleased to hear it's milder than some of the commercially available ones as those are truly vile!! :Vomit The smell gives me a migraine.


the beauty of making your own is that you can make it as strong or as weak as you like it - because, as we all know, a cat's sense of smell is so acute that it doesn't need to be strong to put them off ! I've also had success using it to stop my cats scratching where I don't want them to scratch i.e. sofa and armchairs !


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

That's good to know.  Fortunately none of mine scratch the furniture or the carpets. One of my girls as a kitten used to scratch the stair carpet on a couple of the risers but she stopped as an adult thank goodness.


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## Wiz201 (Jun 13, 2012)

We usually have females spayed about 6 months so she's way over due to be spayed. That could be the reason why she's still swinging off the curtains. Only thing to do is not let her in rooms with curtains.


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## Hisoka (Jul 3, 2017)

I have just got a 4 year old Bengal who seems pretty well behaved on the whole. She did (once only!) try to climb the voile curtain in my bedroom window and luckily I was there to see what happened - the curtain is only held up by a tension rod and it couldn't resist this sudden pulling so rod and curtain both fell onto cat below which quite startled her and made me laugh. She's never done it again. Since then I have adapted my bedroom so she can get up high onto the wardrobes near the window so hopefully that will be enough to satisfy her urges!


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## Calvine (Aug 20, 2012)

Yes, I fostered a pair of nutcases who brought the curtains down complete with rail, despite having climbing posts, toys etc in their room. They were youngsters too.


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## lalalalana (Jul 4, 2017)

Thank you for all your replies! She's loads of places to climb high I've decided she's just a diva kitty haha!

She has been spayed now, it hasn't calmed her down whatsoever, she's just going to be a mischievous kitty all her life I think, but I wouldn't change her for the world!

I am going to try some of the oil though, but I have to say whenever I eat lemon meringue pie she won't leave me alone, seems this kitty likes citrus! Will have to see how it goes. Knowing Scully she will be swinging on them all the more haha!


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## mollymop64 (Mar 30, 2014)

lalalalana said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've had to open an account because I'm at my wits end.
> 
> ...


My cat used to do the same but then I realised that she knew it annoyed me and that's why she was doing it, very clever animals ..from then on I just sat playing my games on my tablet and singing to myself, I was bouncing inside but I also wanted to laugh at her, she was so confused at my reaction after around 2 days she finally gave in. Bought some new curtains and there's still not a mark on them. Now I have to get her out of using my bed base as a scratch pole lol


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

I think she just got bored with the curtains that's all, and moved on to using your bed base instead!


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## mollymop64 (Mar 30, 2014)

chillminx said:


> I think she just got bored with the curtains that's all, and moved on to using your bed base instead!


The curtains was about a year ago, she has only just started with the bed base, she just loves to wind me up


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## SbanR (Jun 16, 2017)

mollymop64 said:


> The curtains was about a year ago, she has only just started with the bed base, she just loves to wind me up


Is that her in your Avatar? She does have a devilish expression! Haha. She intends to keep her mummy young


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## Saf (Jul 20, 2016)

Mine use my bed as a scratching post but life has taught me a bed is an inanimate object and when I think of all beds I've ever owned I struggle to remember what they even looked like but the memories of my previous cats will remain with me for the rest of my life. So, personally, if my cats start climbing curtains or using a wardrobe as a scratching post, I'm not gonna get too stressed about it.


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