My kitty is entertained by knocking over our drinks! What to do?

Question

She is nine months old (strictly indoor), and has recently acquired this bad habit. As much as I try to keep my cups/glasses out of the way, my kids certainly don't (and she can usually reach them anyway). I'm tired of cleaning up messes because of her mischief. She actually goes out of her way to do this -- puts her paw in the cup to pull it over...

Answer 1

My cat did this. Make sure she is ok with her water arrangement. Turns out my cat wasn't and this was his way of letting me know (drinking out of and knocking over my water). He had arthritis and wanted water on both floors of our house. I hadn't even thought to do that. I felt bad but hey, we both learned something. I learned to pay careful attention to evaluate even what seem like nuisance behaviors in an animal and he learned that putting his head in my cup sometimes resulted in an unexpected thirst quenching treat. So for a while after that, I used sports bottles and/or sippy cups. I still use a sports bottle at night or he's likely to help himself.

You can try sports bottles/sippy cups for the kids until you can get kitty out of the habit.

Watch the kids to ensure that none of them are enabling this like a game with her. My brother used to do stuff like that a lot with our pets when we were little, which is why I even think to mention it. Not slamming your kids, but kids are kids.

Enlist the family to help so that every time kitty goes for a cup, she gets squirted (keep a hand on the cup or it might fall when she takes off). As someone else already said, after a few squirts, simply "menacing'" her with the squirt bottle should be enough most of the time.

No one should squirt the crap out of her, that would ruin the association of cup with squirting. No one should taunt kitty into doing it just so s/he can squirt the cat.

Once you think kitty is mostly out of her habit, you can try a return to glasses. When you do, consider putting a lemon, lime, or orange slice in drinks. This way if she comes near it, she can be detered with the fruit. Most cats hate citrus.

Lastly, it sounds like she gets up on tables, coffee tables, and counters if she can "usually reach the drinks". Decreasing her table time (squirting or noise making when she goes up) at least so she's less likely to do it when you (and your drink) are in the room will decrease her chances to find and spill a cup.

Answer 2

If the spill was water, I would wipe the water spill up with the cat. She would hate it for a while and lick herself clean, but few minutes later she would be up to her usual antics again!

but do it gently and never hold her by the scruff of the neck and wipe from the neck down. be gentile but get her good and wet.

my cat actually has stopped doing this for 6 months now! I have doen this a total of 5 times in 2.5 years.

Answer 3

Use spray bottle to spray some water onto their face when ever you want to stop bad habbit of a cat, after a few time, you don't even have to spray, just shake the bottle, they will quit what they are doing immediatly.

Answer 4

My cat does the same thing.

She's just bored. Get her some toys...don't leave the glasses anywhere so she can get to them...if she starts to knock over a glass, clap and tell her no.

Answer 5

Aww what a little mischief maker... like another person said, squirt her with water...if it works wonders on cats that fight, it should definately work. Hope that helps.

Answer 6

As soon as you see her about to do it again, squirt her with water. They hate that. She'll learn quick.

Answer 7

use spill proof sippy cups unitll she grows out of it

Answer 8

don't put drink within his reach

Answer 9

Wow!! This is alittle weird here.!!!

Answer 10

This is strange.