Destructive Cat

[colleenh1212]

My neutered male cat who is a little over a year old has become so destrucitve. The second we are not paying attention to him he knocks down something. It's to the point where we can't have anything on display in the house. One of his favorite things to do is while we are sleeping to rip pictures off the walls or books off shelves. Nothing seems to deter him from this, and I'm losing a lot of sleep from it. We have 2 other cats who do not behave like this.

He has loads of toys and we give him so much attention, but at 3 in the morning, i want to be sleeping. He seems to get bored really fast with his toys when we play with him too. It's a lose lose situation.

I'm not sure what else to do. If we try to shut him out of the room at night he scratches at the door all night. I want a happy cat. Any suggestions?

 

[FelinskiFamily]

Get rid of or put away everything he can knock over.
About his night crazies, hopefully that will stop, Julio used to drive me crazy at night and now his younger sister does the same thing.

 

[susanm9006]

It's a game to him but there are some things you can try to spoil it for him. I had one of those cats and here are the things I tried, mostly successfully. Use the stickie 3M wall stuff on the back of frames to make them stick to the wall. Remove as many breakables as you can and use Velcro to attach the rest to surfaces. Pick up those obnoxious motion activated toys like a big old singing billy bass or cackling/talking Halloween toy that you can set or hang near the bookcase so it makes noise when he goes near it. Most have a switch so you can shut it off during the day and save the startle factor for his nighttime antics. Breath deeply and wait for him to outgrow it.