caught mid chomp, little gremlin. almost every plant is toxic to cats yet he craves the death greens.
Find a bitter agent spray at the pet store, like bitter apple, and spray it on the leaves of the plant
They’ll eventually learn that the plants taste bad, and leave them alone (saved my Aloe from a very mouthy feline, as well as various fabrics from the golden retriever puppy)
Alternatively, put lemon or citrus scented spray on the plants, but i found that less effective compared to the bitter spray
You can also get them cat grass or silvervine sticks to chew on
Maybe, uh, don’t have toxic plants then?
i don’t get to control that, unfortunately. not my house.
edit: so far i’ve checked every plant brought in and have objected stronger to deadlier varieties lol. it’s not that this person doesn’t care… it’s unfortunately a bit complicated.
Remove the plants anyway. The home owner is psychotic.
neither of these are toxic. i was being a bit humorous with my description. deadly plants don’t come in here at all either so no worries on that.
Have you tried planting a tray of grass for him to eat instead?
planning on getting him some cat grass! nothing as of yet but it’s our next purchase.
I have 2 toddlers and 2 cats, redirection is much more successful than negative reinforcement for both.
definitely, i believe it. luckily i mostly teasingly swat at him as he tends to avoid the plants. he had to pester again today though.
In the meantime try a handful of regular ol’ lawn grass, if you know it’s not full of pesticides. My cat loves the random grass I weed out of my outdoor plant pots even more than the official Cat Grass I grow indoors. By the way, don’t bother with fresh catnip, it’s not for eating and most cats would rather sniff the dried kind.
thanks for the tip! pretty sure our lawn is treated, unfortunately.
I have some cat grass and both of them completely ignore it. It’s the only indoor plant they don’t eat.
oh great hah. i’ll look up specific plants cats enjoy munching on then. i was just gonna get some simple PretSmart grass.
Give your cats kitty psychedelics and get spider plants.
Oh shit… I have like 15 spider plants around the house, this suddenly explains a lot
Lmao yes, this is also how I learned.
PleaseDoNotTheCat.jpg IRL edition
My cat has an entire garden to run around in. Still comes in and chews on the indoor plants.
haha, i love cats so much they’re so silly and funny. i can imagine Theo reacting the same way.
“No”
I thought the need to chew plants was a diet thing, like needing more fiber.
it’s for removing the hairs they ingest from their stomach - the plant parts help with removing the hair while they vomit. If they don’t do this the hair can clog their intestines, leading to constipation and in extreme cases to obstruction (more common the longer the cats hair is)
Does that mean that brushing the cat regularly with deshedding brush would reduce their need to eat plants?
it probably helps, but since they groom themselves with their rough tongue they will always ingest some hair.
it can be! it can also be a simple enjoyment.
You can flip over a wire frame trash can and attach it to what ever surface you’re keeping your plant on. It might look TRASHY lol though. Because it’s a table, I’d use the adhesives that they make for temporary wall hooks. Easy to install, easy to remove. There’s tons of other wire sheets/ frames you can look into, too.
Super cheap method: buy some chicken wire and make a dome.
if the owner of the house would care to remember i’d simply not have these plants lol. i don’t think they’d go for that suggestion either.
