How to Keep Your Cat From Eating Your House Plants

As every cat owner knows, cats become intrigued by a variety of houseplants and often times end up eating them only to get sick later or destroy the plant in the process. How do you put a stop to such behavior? There are ways.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Discipline your cat when necessary. If you see the cat beginning to chew on the plants, make a loud noise to startle them or even spray them with a spray bottle. This will discourage them.

2. Put doube-sided tape around the plant. The sticky surface will irritate the cat and they will likely stay away.

3. Put aluminum foil around the plant. Cats hate the sound that it makes when they step on it.

4. Put a strong spice all over the plant. Once a cat gets the taste of the spice in their mouth, they will back away and think twice about eating it next time.

5. If all else fails, move the plants to a higher, out of reach location or another room of the house. Some cats will do all it takes to eat plants so the only option is to move them.

Tips & Warnings

• Some plants can be poisonous to cats! Make sure you know which plants are in your house and if they pose a potential threat to your pet!

[kbrown4]

on 10/19/2008 I'm looking for a non-toxic home remedy to mix and spray on plants to deter my cats from eating them

[daelin914]

on 9/1/2008 I've tried things like this and while water works, the cat knows when you're asleep and unable to stop him (mine does this). Mine used to eat every plant I had, so a friend told me to get a pointsettia which cat's won't eat. Sure enough, he went to eat it but didn't. When I was asleep, he found a way. I woke up and found that he bit the stems of the flowers just under the head of the plant and all the tops of the flowers lay on the table. There was nothing I could do but laugh at the ingenuity of the cat. Needless to say, my house in plant free. :(

[Susang6]

on 8/31/2008 love cats, and this was a great article. I trained my cat with the spray bottle, now I just have to say, "where's the blue bottle" and that's enough to send my cat running across the room. water works!
5 * to you!

[Cherst1031]

on 8/31/2008 Great ideas, I have heard (and never tried) that you can put small blown up balloons around a plant and if the cats pop one it will scare them away from the plant for good. I try to stick to step 5, though, for my own sanity :)

[oneloved]

on 8/31/2008 Great tip! Double-sided tape is a great way to train cats to stay away from baby furniture before the baby arrives, too.