Jumping on the mantelpiece

Can anyone advise please? 

Sukie has developed the habit of jumping on the mantelpiece and trying to knock every thing off!!   We have had to remove everything from the mantelpiece including a clock, a framed photo, a paperweight and a vase of flowers.    It has reached the stage that we cannot have her with us in the sitting room;  Sukie knows that we do not want her to do this but she is obviously enjoying herself and she gets quite offensive and hisses when we remove her.  

We humans just want to relax and watch the television and  Sukie won't let us!.   How can we break her of this habit?

Cats are known to do that.   Other than gluing the items on the mantelpiece, I suggest you leave it bare. Does Sukie have a tall cat tree she can climb on? I suggest you put one in the room so she can also watch tv with you. 

My cats do this sometimes too. It's just kinda known that cats will climb on mantles. As a kitten, my oldest male cat knocked over a vase I had on the mantle so I quit keeping expensive or very breakable things on it. A large framed painting by my dad and a gnome statue on each end is all keep on mine. They're heavy enough they don't move much. I have a black cat Christmas ornament and calico cat Christmas ornament that look a lot like my older 2 cats. The year I found the ornaments, I hung them on each one's stocking, one on each end of the mantle and my stocking in the middle. My couch sits perpendicular (right angle) to the fireplace with mantle and the girl's was hung closest to the couch. One night while I was watching TV, the boy jumped on the mantel on the far end where his stocking was and strutted towards the other end and picked up the girl's ornament and dropped it right on the brick hearth, staring at me the whole time he did it. The ear broke off, but I was able to reattach it with super glue. There's just a little chip in it. So I hang our stockings on the wall by the entertainment center now where no cats can reach them.

Can you build a shelf of her own to jump on instead? Or a tree maybe. You have to give her another option or just accept that your mantle will be bare or have broken stuff on it.

Museum putty will help your stuff from beng knocked off the mantel.

A cat tree and other cat climbing furniture may help. You can put cat wall shelves up if your cat really seems to like things similar to the mantel.

Make sure to give your cat plenty of interactive playtime.Sometimes bored cats will seek out things to do, usually something that's annoying to you.

The best thing you can do if museum putty does not work is to put breakable items somewhere your cat can't bother them. I have the same problem and haven't been able to find a better solution other than having a room in my house for the breakable stuff that I don't let my cats in. I know someone who uses a display cabinet for breakable items and her cats don't bother it and this seems to work for her, this might be the best alternative to keeping them on your mantel, that way you can still have the items on display but your cats won't be able to break them. Having more cat trees and playtime always helps but sometimes cats are curious and will still be tempted. I gave up trying to keep my cats off the mantel or away from shelves with breakable items and ended up keeping these items away from the cats not only because I didn't want them getting broken but because I didn't want the cats getting hurt on sharp pieces if they broke something.

Many thanks for your suggestions.  The problem is that our lounge room is very small and what with a couch, two easy chairs, a large TV in the fireplace with a cat infested mantel and two elderly humans, there really isn't enough room for a cat tree!   The mantel piece is bare apart from a heavy Basta Cat with her kitten that I brought home from Egypt.  Every thing else is in/on the bookcase, which is her next port of call when I hunt her off the mantelpiece!

She thoroughly enjoys all the activity and we have decided to leave her alone on the mantelpiece  now, particularly as we have difficulty in getting up out of the chairs....

Tomorrow I shall go and get a scratching post in an effort to distract her.  I am afraid, however, that Sukie has won.

The cats do always seem to win. Good luck with the scratching post! 

Sukie, having cleared the mantle-piece, is posing as a counter to Basta, the Egyptian Cat Goddess.

Geoffrey said:

Sukie, having cleared the mantle-piece, is posing as a counter to Basta, the Egyptian Cat Goddess.

Click to expand...

it's like she belongs on the other end. You know, to balance it out