Hi Kerry - great to have you here!! 
I'd love to get an opinion on our kitty Stumpy. She's getting close to 2 years old now, and we've had her for a little over a year now - she came to us after she'd been living outdoors and was hit by a car and brought to the shelter I volunteer at.
Once she recovered from her injuries, she became very hyperactive, so we got her another kitty friend which helped. We now have 3 girls who all get along really well, play well together and never have any aggression issues or anything like that.
She's now a purely inside cat, and we live in a townhouse of approx. 1000 sq feet, and she occasionally tries to get outside to chew the grass, which we let her do supervised, and within about 5 minutes she wants to come back inside again - she's scared of cars and general outside noises.
Stumpy though is just a little odd... She loves to chew cords - mainly electrical cords. Pretty much every single cord in our house is covered in her teeth marks. We've got convoluted cable (plastic cable covering) that we've put over as much as we can, but she'll still chew on any bit of cabling that's not covered as well as chewing on anything long, thin and plasticy. We have a can of compressed air for cleaning inside computers, and it has a long plastic nozzle - it was chewed to bits the first night we left it out.
She's also just very high energy and leaps on and up everything. She regularly crawls her way up our leather dining chairs, and leaps on and off our nice wooden dining table, so we now have claw marks all over our nice furniture and have to now keep it covered at all times to try and lessen the damage. She has Soft Claws on, which helps but doesn't stop or discourage the behaviour, and we can't keep every claw covered all the time.
She also leaps up our walls - particular the one to the right of this pic:
She tears up the stairs, and leaps up it as high as she can and grabs on with all 4 paws and jumps down again. We've just discovered huge gouges taken out of the wall from her back claws - even when they're clipped, they're pointy enough to damage the soft walls.
They have heaps of toys that she loves to play with, they play lots together, and we try to give her laser pointer time (which she LOVES) at least once a day until she's exhausted.
I have no idea what else to do to try and calm down her hyperactive behaviour. I wouldn't mind so much if she didn't cause so much damage... It seems we're constantly discovering more damage she's caused which is going to cost us. And of course our other big fear is that she's going to chew through a power cord and kill herself. She's already chewed through one which zapped her.
Any advice or help would be REALLY appreciated.
I'd love to get an opinion on our kitty Stumpy. She's getting close to 2 years old now, and we've had her for a little over a year now - she came to us after she'd been living outdoors and was hit by a car and brought to the shelter I volunteer at.
Once she recovered from her injuries, she became very hyperactive, so we got her another kitty friend which helped. We now have 3 girls who all get along really well, play well together and never have any aggression issues or anything like that.
She's now a purely inside cat, and we live in a townhouse of approx. 1000 sq feet, and she occasionally tries to get outside to chew the grass, which we let her do supervised, and within about 5 minutes she wants to come back inside again - she's scared of cars and general outside noises.
Stumpy though is just a little odd... She loves to chew cords - mainly electrical cords. Pretty much every single cord in our house is covered in her teeth marks. We've got convoluted cable (plastic cable covering) that we've put over as much as we can, but she'll still chew on any bit of cabling that's not covered as well as chewing on anything long, thin and plasticy. We have a can of compressed air for cleaning inside computers, and it has a long plastic nozzle - it was chewed to bits the first night we left it out.
She's also just very high energy and leaps on and up everything. She regularly crawls her way up our leather dining chairs, and leaps on and off our nice wooden dining table, so we now have claw marks all over our nice furniture and have to now keep it covered at all times to try and lessen the damage. She has Soft Claws on, which helps but doesn't stop or discourage the behaviour, and we can't keep every claw covered all the time.
She also leaps up our walls - particular the one to the right of this pic:
She tears up the stairs, and leaps up it as high as she can and grabs on with all 4 paws and jumps down again. We've just discovered huge gouges taken out of the wall from her back claws - even when they're clipped, they're pointy enough to damage the soft walls.
They have heaps of toys that she loves to play with, they play lots together, and we try to give her laser pointer time (which she LOVES) at least once a day until she's exhausted.
I have no idea what else to do to try and calm down her hyperactive behaviour. I wouldn't mind so much if she didn't cause so much damage... It seems we're constantly discovering more damage she's caused which is going to cost us. And of course our other big fear is that she's going to chew through a power cord and kill herself. She's already chewed through one which zapped her.
Any advice or help would be REALLY appreciated.
But trust me, she'll get the point quickly and once she stops chewing for at least 2 weeks then you can stop reapplying the tabasco. The faint smell of the tabasco will keep her at bay after the fact. Another thing to also try since she is a chewer and likes long wirely things to chew, at your local pet store pick up a pack of long twisted straw shaped rawhide, made for small dogs. Try to get the chicken flavored ones, if they do not have any you can purchase the regular ones and boil them in a pot of chicken broth at home, let dry, then serve one a day to keep her chompers busy. You can also start a kitty garden in a window sill, growing cat grass, wheat grass, catnip, and parsely...all safe plants for cats.
When you see them using the post, reward them with praise, attention, and tasty treats right away. If you see them clawing your furniture or the wall, stomp on the ground and hiss at them, once they stop gently carry them to the scrathing post and act as if you are pawing at the post, show 'em how it's done. 
They will get the picture after a few rounds of this, just remember to be consistant with your retraining. I hope this information helps you guys. Have a great weekend!
