It's the most magical time of year! But your bengal kitty (or any cat for that matter) is just as excited about those Christmas decorations as you are! A large, shiny new addition to your home will surely pique the interest of any cat ready to blow off some energy. Here are some tips to prevent a Christmas accident with your cat and its newfound fixation!
Leave your tree naked for a couple days
Decorating for Christmas brings many household changes that your Bengal will not be used to, tempting them to get into trouble. It's best to bring these changes in gradually to not overwhelm your cat and reduce the chances of your decorations or tree being a part of its next play session. A great way to do this is to set up your tree first without ornaments to let your cat get used to it for a day or two. This also lets you observe how much attention your cat gives to the tree before adding costly decorations to it.
Use plastic ornaments at the bottom instead of glass
One of the biggest tempting factors on your Christmas tree are the shiny ornaments, which look like perfect new toys to your cat. To avoid a glass mess and expensive ornaments being shattered, it's a good idea to substitute fragile glass ornaments with fake glass (plastic) ornaments. This way, your Bengal is safer around your tree and any mishaps are much less costly. If you do have expensive ornaments that you want to continue using, place them on the higher parts of the tree outside of your Bengal’s reach.
Christmas tree climbing prevention
If your cat has made if very obvious they want to actually climb into your tree there's
a great contraption that can prevent this from happening. It's called the Christmas tree defender and it goes underneath your tree and prevents the kitty from climbing up into the tree.
Protect cords from being chewed
In addition to keeping your ornaments and tree safe, you want to make sure you bengal cat is safe from electric shock from chewing on wires. Not only is this important for cats but dogs too. Cord protectors are great and I only recently learned about them. You can wrap them around the cord for you Christmas lights and your kitty won't be able to chew through them. They are really great for charge cords too. Lucky we only have to use these with young bengals that are teething. Our older bengal don't chew cords. Alternatively you can you painters tape and tape most of the cord down to the floor and up the wall.
Jingle Bells Trick!
You know how you have bells around your cat's neck to keep track of where they are going and what they are getting into? You can apply the same solution to your Christmas tree. Move your more precious ornaments to higher positions on the tree and layer in some jingle bells on the lower section. When you hear the ring-a-ding-dings, it's time to put a stop to the paw-ty!
Secure ornaments with a craft twine
If you have some ornaments that you just really want on the lower part of your tree just get some thin wire from Home Depot or green floral wire from any craft store and secure the ornaments to the branches that way.
Protect you cat from drinking toxic Christmas tree water
Bengals are notorious for loving water. They WILL drink it from anywhere! Pine oil can be toxic to cats so you want to make sure you cat doesn't drink any of the water from your Christmas tree stand. Wrap some foil around the truck of your Christmas tree to prevent your cat from having access to the water in the Christmas tree stand.
Cat proof your Christmas tree with scented pinecones
Did you know that most cats have an extreme aversion to certain smells? You can spray pinecones with a mixture of apple cider vinegar and place them in or around the bottom of your tree to help repel them away. If you don't want to use the DIY method there are lots of great cat deterrent sprays available. Not only do they work for Christmas trees, but also for unwanted scratching and chewing!
Toxic Christmas house plants
Flowering house plants are often used for Christmas decorations. Cats may chew house plants if they can reach them. Poinsettia, Amaryllis, and Cyclamen can all cause mild toxicity if chewed, with vomiting and diarrhea. Lilies are highly toxic to cats, red lilies should especially be kept away from cats.
Other hazardous decorations to cats
Fake snow is oh so pretty, but when your cat ingests large quantities of the stuff, they might become violently ill. A more immediate danger, however, is posed by tinsels and angel hair. While tinsel is made out of plastic, angel hair is actually very finely spun glass. Both should be kept away from your cat, as these decorations are very likely to cause severe intestinal blockages when swallowed. It would be no fun at all to end up at the emergency vet clinic over the holidays.
Get your kitty some new fun toys to distract them
If you really want to make your kitty happy and distract them at the same time, you can get them some super fun new Christmas toys! That's what we do! We don't buy new ones ever year either. We put all the cat Christmas toys away after New Years with the rest of the Christmas decorations and then when we take them out the following year it's like a "kitty Christmas party in a box" all over again!!! Here's some of our favorite Christmas toys that you will likely see in the videos will be posting this month.