# My cat is destroying my house



## Andyreww (Feb 17, 2015)

Hi guys. I'm typing this really annoyed and really need some input/advice/help.

My bengal female is now around 13 months, and she is making me tear my hair out. She destroys everything. My wallpaper is in tatters, she's nibbled and ripped the edges of books, she's climbed my curtains and smashed one of the glass globes that were on the ends, she gets into the kitchen and plays havoc in there when I haven't firmly pulled the door closed - same for the bathroom. She climbs my (cube shape) shelves in the bedroom and pulls things out of them onto the floor to then also destroy them. I have had a great day, and came home to find my headphones that my boyfriend bought me not even a week ago for my birthday, with the headphones completely detached and chewed.
I'm just at the end of my rope, I don't know what to do. I've never experienced this with my domestic, Prynn, who I had first and is now around 2. Prynn even now is not destructive - though she's become prone to scaling the lobby wall when they're chasing each other, but that's it. I just don't know how to deal with it.

Whenever I'm leaving the house, I have to go around the house, doing the usual safety checks (doors, windows, etc), but also have to check there's nothing valuable or whatever lying around and hide them somewhere because I know Nahla will just destroy them - and even still she manages. 
She has ruined my rug, she will scratch at the carpets - even walking over and around scratching mats/poles to scratch at the carpets and walls.
She still tries to monopoly my attention - Prynn still won't cuddle up with me or curl up on me to sleep since Nahla arrived, because any time she tries Nahla comes running over and forces her off by trying to get closer to me, so Prynn has just stopped trying. I can't play with Prynn because the minute a toy is on the go, Nahla is pushing by Prynn or jumping on top of her to get to it; even when I've tired Nahla out, she'll still keep coming back to lazily swat at it, then saunter away again, so Prynn again just gives up trying. If Nahla is even in the room - sometimes even when she's not - Prynn is too busy looking for Nahla, seeing where she is and what she's doing, to play. I've totally lost the loving, playful, funny cat Prynn was and I'm just so distressed about everything. 

The two get on very well aside from what I've said about boggarting my affection(though they have been known to both cuddle on me together on occasion) and not sharing play time. 
I've been in touch with a local vet who have a feline behaviour expert on their staff, but I've so far been waiting three months to hear back from him after putting in my application, and I am still being told it could be weeks yet.

So please, petforums peoples, please help me. 
Is she bored? Does she need more stimulating toys, or am I not playing with her enough? But if it is that, why is Prynn who gets even less play, not destroying the place? How can I get them to play together instead of stopping Prynn trying, and also help bring Prynn back to being my furbaby? 

- Nahla is a bengal/british short hair mix. 13 months. Arrived here at ten weeks, introductions etc went well (I posted about it at the time on here, you'll still be able to find it).
- Prynn is a domestic medium-length hair. 2 years old roughly. Arrived at eight weeks, used to be the best of buddies and always cuddling and taking naps together.
- Both are spayed.
- I play with them at least once a day, more when time allows it.
- There's no set times I'm out of the house; I'm not working atm so it varies with what I'm doing that day.
- They were both only eating Felix pouches, but a few months ago I've been feeding raw with occasional pouches which is/has going/gone great.
- It's just me in the house, no other pets or children/people.

If you need more info please ask. Thanks in advance for the help and advice guys, hope you're all doing well.


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

I hate to stereotype but she is Bengal - they are generally high energy cats and need a lot of stimulating play. She isn't being naughty or deliberately destructive, she's just looking for things to do and to get your attention. I would suggest more playtime, puzzle/treat feeders, an outdoor run and either put anything valuable in a safe room or invest in some earthquake putty.


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## Andyreww (Feb 17, 2015)

lymorelynn said:


> I hate to stereotype but she is Bengal - they are generally high energy cats and need a lot of stimulating play. She isn't being naughty or deliberately destructive, she's just looking for things to do and to get your attention. I would suggest more playtime, puzzle/treat feeders, an outdoor run and either put anything valuable in a safe room or invest in some earthquake putty.


So you think more intricate/stimulating toys might help? Can you recommend any particular ones?
I'm in a flat so I can't build an outdoor run, but I do take her out at night when it's quiet on her lead haha  she seems to really enjoy that.


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

Have a look at interactive cat toys - google that and you will find a lot. Taking her for a walk is good. She has energy to burn off - will she run with you? One of my Siamese used to do that - we would walk up our lane, exploring hedges etc. and then race back to the house


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Hi Andyreww, I remember your previous posts.  I am sorry to hear things haven't worked out too well with Nahla. As Lynn has said Bengals can be high energy cats who need lots of entertainment and challenges to prevent them getting bored. Basically Nahla is being destructive because she doesn't have enough to do to occupy her.

Bengals love to climb (as you have found) so I would start looking at ways you can use the vertical space in your apartment to make an overhead catwalk for her. If you are not skilled at DIY, you could design something challenging for her using ideas from the link below, and find a local handyman or carpenter to put them up for you. If you buy shelves from Ikea they are not expensive.

Have a look at this for ideas

https://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/...BHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Cat+Shelving&fr=mcafee

and also at this:






Also I am sure Nahla would love a floor to ceiling climbing pole such as these made by Hicat. They are not cheap but they look great and are built to last. Scroll down the page for the photograph of the full pole.

http://www.hicat.co.uk/fatcat-4/


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Further thoughts - as Nahla likes going out on the harness and leash, can you aim to take her out for several hours at a time, a couple of times a week.

As you have no garden yourself, do you have a friend who has a safe garden? So you could take Nahla there and let her wander around exploring. If you buy one of those extending dog leashes you can sit down nearby and watch her to make sure the lead doesn't get caught up in undergrowth or get wrapped around her neck. Be sure to loop the leash over your wrist for safety.

Also I would train yourself to put fragile things away in a drawer as soon as you finish using them e.g. your headphones. Many of us have to be disciplined and do that to save our stuff from our kittens and cats - even those of us with moggies.

As for Nahla monopolising your attention so poor Prynn does not get a look in any longer, I am afraid that is probably something you are stuck with. Evidently Nahla is very possessive of her resources and does not want to share them with Prynn. I feel sorry for Prynn, life does not sound much fun for her these days  But that is always the risk when you introduce another cat to the household, especially a high energy cat and particularly when the cats are indoor 24/7 and cannot even get away from each other to go outside.

You can make things a little more comfortable for Prynn by ensuring there are plenty of resources available so the cats do not have to share if they don't want to. This means giving them:

separate feeding stations, preferably in different rooms, or at least at different heights in the same room,
several water bowls spread around.
lots of scratching posts, mats and pads, 3 or 4 to every room,
plenty of cat beds spread around so they can rotate the places they sleep. (including hidey holes behind sofas and chairs etc)
At least 3 litter trays/boxes, though preferably 4 as Nahla is so possessive of resources.(do not place the litter trays together but all in different spots)

Walls - it's best not to have wallpaper with cats, but have plain plastered walls..

Blinds instead of curtains.

Do away with carpets, instead have laminated or polished wood floors with inexpensive rugs that you will not lose sleep over them getting damaged by the cats.

Many of us have had to make these sacrifices as the pay off for having cats as companions. Particularly if one chooses to have more than one cat. 

Once you've made some adaptations to your home and routines please let us know if there is improvement in Nahla's behaviour.

A final word - make sure Nahla is getting enough to eat. She is still growing and her nutritional needs are high. The raw diet sounds great, or a good quality wet food. No dry. Hunger will make her behaviour erratic and destructive. So 3 meals a day, possibly 4 at her age.


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## Andyreww (Feb 17, 2015)

Hi guys! thanks for your amazing replies  I really appreciate you taking the time. 
Just to reiterate - I was extremely sleep deprived when I wrote this thread, so the death of the headphones was perhaps irking me more than it should hahaha. But the issues still obviously need resolved.

I'm short on cash atm and will be for the next few weeks, but I'll start looking for some interactive/puzzle toys for the two of them and see if that helps any  @chillminx re: your ceiling high cat pole idea, I have actually been getting some things together to build a DIY cat pole that I saw on here by @Jansheff I believe it was, who got her inspiration from @Paddypaws ! I'm not working so something so cheap and simple is taking an annoyingly long time to get around to actually building, but I'll get there! 
I have this mental image in my head of these runs and hidey holes up near the ceiling, with ceiling high cat poles to reach them hahaha. Once I'm working again, one day!

Re: taking her out for a couple of hours at a time, it's difficult because I can only take her out pretty late at night, 11pm at the earliest usually. She still freaks out when someone appears nearby or a car drives by on the road near us, so I need to wait until it's so late to avoid people! But I can maybe start bringing down the times slowly, introducing small numbers of the public at a time haha. But I'll try and take her out more times a week than I am now! I really do need to get an extendable dog leash - the harness and lead I have are really good, but I do get the feeling she'd enjoy taking off a bit more - when she's not running back to me for a quick stroke of reassurance lol. 
I could probably take her to my boyfriends house - he has a good garden with walls around, the only issue is he's not close enough to walk there, so it'd be two car journeys and setting up some kind of litter box - not sure my bf would appreciate me putting a small pile of cat litter in his garden to get her just to go outside haha(there are cats near his house who would love that!). Hopefully me taking her out more will do the trick, and I'll walk further too; she does seem to be beginning to learn the immediate area we've been doing, she's sniffing less and shows more confidence.

I was hoping you'd have a good fix for her monopolizing me haha  Prynn is still affectionate - I don't want to portray her as this depressed, shell of a cat lol - she's just less so. But I have seen her improve in that respect in the last couple months; Nahla is only 11 months in being here, so it's still kinda early I guess. But there aren't any problems with food or litter boxes - they both eat together and there's never issues with it; they eat out of their own bowls(occasionally switching half way through, it's quite funny, like they have different food lol), they both go to the litter boxes no problem, so all that's fine. It's just my lap and a toy that's on the go Nahla can't get enough of lol. Hopefully with all these new things I'm going to do, things will balance out!

Oh yeah, she eats plenty lol, wee monster that she is. Ironically, she was a bit unwell yesterday - I think she was nauseous (licking her lips, sitting around/sleeping, not playing, tail down, just very sullen) and she had a couple noiseless gags which is always upsetting, but she eventually ate something and seems to be perking up again  they're still sometimes fussy with the raw food - love beef, chicken is a hit and a miss - and will just eat a couple of bites and then leave it, which is always fun for me to scoop out their bowls lol. So in that respect, I usually give them a felix pouch in the morning, cuz I know they'll eat that, then some raw at two points throughout the day, then either another pouch or half a pouch mixed with raw at night. But again, if they haven't eaten the raw, I'll just scoop it out and replace it with a pouch. The joys! Lol.

Hope you guys are all well!


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## Paddypaws (May 4, 2010)

I have pretty dubious DIY skills, but my ceiling pole is still in position several years on and is used many times through the day whether it is as part of the mad half hour zoomie dash, or simply to gain access to the shelf bed on the nearby wall.


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## Andyreww (Feb 17, 2015)

Paddypaws said:


> I have pretty dubious DIY skills, but my ceiling pole is still in position several years on and is used many times through the day whether it is as part of the mad half hour zoomie dash, or simply to gain access to the shelf bed on the nearby wall.


Yeah, the poles look amazing! I'm so excited to get one built. It's just so hard when I'm not working! 
Maybe I'll start a gofundme  haha. If I thought anyone would donate to me building my girls climbing furniture, I would!

Hope you and yours are well!


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## Jansheff (Jan 31, 2011)

Good luck with building your pole - they're a great saving on the original Hi-Cat Pole - which I absolutely love. Google them if you've never seen them. Having made a straightforward pole, I would absolutely love to have one of the large diameter ones where the cats can climb inside, as well as on the outside. 

I can't remember the exact figure without looking back, but I'm pretty sure building mine cost under £20. It is really a two person job though. And I fully expected to have to replace mine after a year or so, as it's only cardboard after all. But it's still going strong - I think it's 3 and a half years now. It's gone a bit fuzzy and I think the cardboard has weakened at cat scratching height, but I've just flipped it round. I'll definitely make another when necessary. Although my large tabby moggy has never used it - he's a bit cat and not so agile - my little (nearly 12 year old!) Burmese are up and down it numerous times a day. Best cat toy I never bought! 

PS It keeps visitors entertained too!


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## MilleD (Feb 15, 2016)

chillminx said:


> http://www.hicat.co.uk/fatcat-4/


Is that seriously £720 for just the pole, no holes or shelves!!?


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

MilleD said:


> Is that seriously £720 for just the pole, no holes or shelves!!?


They have always been very expensive but I haven't checked out the prices for a couple of years. Sounds like they may have gone up in price a lot since I last looked!


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## Paddypaws (May 4, 2010)

@Andyreww the home made pole costs pennies to make. You get the cardboard inner roll from a carpet shop for free, they may even have a tiny offcut of carpet that you can use. Sisal would be fantastic but I used wool berber as I had some spare from a bedroom carpet, or you could ask on local facebook/freecycling pages. After that you need a heavy duty staple gun and maybe some Gorilla glue or No More Nails. I managed it all pretty easily on my own.


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## Andyreww (Feb 17, 2015)

Paddypaws said:


> @Andyreww the home made pole costs pennies to make. You get the cardboard inner roll from a carpet shop for free, they may even have a tiny offcut of carpet that you can use. Sisal would be fantastic but I used wool berber as I had some spare from a bedroom carpet, or you could ask on local facebook/freecycling pages. After that you need a heavy duty staple gun and maybe some Gorilla glue or No More Nails. I managed it all pretty easily on my own.


Yeah I have everything I need except the carpet tube and some carpet to go around it which locally is gonna cost me twenty quid total


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## Paddypaws (May 4, 2010)

You really only need a tiny amount of carpet, and I think you may get lucky when getting the tube from the carpet shop, they may have a scrap left that is no good for anything else. Or ask on facebook pages, people are always giving away things like that.


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## ZoeM (Jul 16, 2015)

Hi @Andyreww

I just wanted to add my sympathy. Having cats means that you have to change things in your house.. and that's just the way it is..

When my two were younger, I ended up having no wallpaper near doors - just no point, they scratched like mad. In my house now, I have two small walls that are wallpappered, every other wall is painted to stop this. My stair carpet ended up getting scratched and ruined on about 4 stairs. I have a cat scratcher now at the top, so that stopped most of the scratching, but even with that, one cat still used to love scratching there. I have carpet in my bedroom, but all downstairs is laminate - just makes it easier for when they throw up or make a mess.

I've had to give up having plants, and I love plants, but one cat in particular just eats them, another got knocked over and smashed (so you're not alone!) My older cat recently smashed a lovely glass lamp I had - probably the only breakable decoration I had in the house. Other breakables are on a very high shelf that fortunately the cats just havent bothered to go up. Regarding curtains, I'm lucky, my foster kittens used to love jumping up then swinging from them, but they were foster kittens so they didn't wreck them! Oh, and I have expensive blinds that I can pull up so they are out of reach of their favourite windows.

One cat is destroying the rug in my kitchen, but meh.. it happens lol

My cats are domestic short hairs, so just mogs and I guess I've just learned whats best - this has taken 17 years though...

Small changes.. over time.. and definitely put cat scratching posts in all the places they scratch. MIght help some, while they go through that phase...

I have some interactive toys and several cat trees, for toys that I know various cats like, here are some:

My kittens loved these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Petstages-...59958&sr=1-3&keywords=petstages+toys+for+cats

Mara loves this (best purchase I ever made for her)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Petstages-...9996&sr=1-22&keywords=petstages+toys+for+cats

Huxley and the kittens loved these mice and used to carry them round the house
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SMALL-FAUX...qid=1463160222&sr=1-18&keywords=mice+for+cats

All my cats love laser pens
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Catch-proj...qid=1463160246&sr=1-44&keywords=mice+for+cats

Snafu loves this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kong-Cat-T...&qid=1463160292&sr=1-1&keywords=kong+for+cats

All my cats enjoyed this, though Mara cheated so I had to lodge it under a table so she couldnt!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Catit-5074...id=1463160334&sr=1-1&keywords=cat+maze+feeder

Good luck making changes in your house to make your life less stressful!

All the best

Z


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

@Andyreww, your boyfriend's garden sounds perfect for Nahla to explore.  It would be a much safer place for her than the street late at night, when there may be undesirables about! Also it's not advisable for her to think of night time as an active time. Better she should learn to regard night time as time for sleep, or she will end up in the routine of always wanting to be active at night, which you won't appreciate once you are working again. .

Nahla will soon get used to travelling a short distance by car, particularly if she comes to associate the car ride with a reward of exploring a nice garden at the end. As for a litter tray, the chances are she will choose not to toilet whilst she is outdoors in a strange place, but if you are concerned then you buy one of those cheap plastic boxes - the type that are used for under bed storage, and cost £5 from Tesco. They come with a lid, so you can use it as a travelling litter box. Whilst you are in transit in the car (with Nahla safe in her carrier) you can put the lid on and then when you get to your b/f's garden take the lid off the litter tray and either place it indoors e.g. the kitchen, or outdoors in the garden for her. Make sure she sees it.


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## mrs phas (Apr 6, 2014)

our carpet shops will give the tubes away for free, and, if you ask nicely, will often give you the old carpet sample books, either free or for a couple of quid


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