kitty jumping!!!!!

howdee im new to this forum and i have a few questions you probably all hear daily! first question.. my kitty is 8 weeks old she was raised by a vet and has her starting shots, im taking her to the vet again in 2 weeks for a checkup but one thing is, shes been getting on things like chairs, tables, what not, i dont really care she can get on whatever she wants in my room i dont stop her, but when i open the door to let her run around the house she gets on moms kitchen table and my mom scoulds her i told her not to and theirs other ways to do it, and she asked how? and i said well im not sure but i know yelling isnt the solution, and she saids "lets do a squirt bottle" sounds pretty harsh to me! i have had my kitty 2 days and i love her so much already i dont want her to get yelled at or squirted so how can i stop her from getting on moms stuff when its okay for her to get on my things? and another question.. is science diet good healthy food? and how about fresh step kitty litter? thanks alot!

Hello and welcome to the board. The squirt bottle if used properly can be a deterent to stopping a kitty from getting up on things, but you do NOT squirt the cat! Instead you squirt at an angle ahead of the cat to hit a corner or something so the cat thinks that there is prey and will jump off the table to investigate. Another thing you can do is put placemats (upside down) all over the table half on the table and half off, the cat jumps up, the placemats slip the cat tumbles to the ground. Or set empty soda cans with a few pennies in them around so when the cat jumps up, the can gets knocked over and the cat flees.

xplicit I also deleted your duplicate post in the lounge on this subject. You will get more people adding to this thread in the morning when the members wake up and start reading.

well, do they stop jumping on stuff like that when they get older? is it just a phase or what?

Jumping is a natural instinct. You really cannot stop a cat from jumping on things, but you can reprogram them to jump only on certain things. Your best bet would be to get her a cat condo so she can be up high and not be so inclined to jump on the pieces of furniture that your mom gets so upset about. Don't get mad at the cat, she is only responding as nature intends her to. Give her an alternate place to go (cat condo) cat perch or something along those lines and that will help.

She is still a kitten and it is in them to explore and run and jump and be a kitten. Just tell you mom to have patience and work with the kitten to show her what she can and can't do.

8 weeks is very very young. Your kitten will want to explore EVERYTHING, its natural habit. Hissy gave you some good suggestions. Yelling at the cat will probly do more harm than good. You dont want kitty to grow up to be a scaredy cat or aggressive. Some cats do calm down a lot as they get older, but they will always want to get into things so be prepared!

I agree with Hissy and Sicycat about this being natural for kittens/cats. Another idea is to put foil on surfaces that u don't want ur kitten jumping up on. The noise and feel of foil often bothers cats.

Cats will still jump up on high places. One of my cats who was about 14 years old still leapt to the top of the entertainment center or on top of the fence in the backyard and that was pretty high!

Another idea is to get a ceiling to floor cat post- you can get that from Walmart. I bought that for my 4 cats and they ADORE it. They are constantly scrambling all over it and can lay on perches that are pretty high. The price is very reasonable- I think about 30 dollars- you have to assemble it urself but it's really easy to do.
Cat condos will do also. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any good cat condo that is under $100. Am still looking!

Good luck and keep us posted!

thanks for all the help guys, ill look for a perch some time soon maybe she will like that