2 ways to stop your cat climbing your Christmas tree. One is better than the other.

I recently wrote about stopping your cat climbing the Christmas tree by putting tinfoil around it. When your cat walks on the foil, they dislike the experience so they back off. As they don’t see that you are part of an unpleasant experience, they don’t associate you with it. And therefore, it is an “act of God” moment. It is no longer a form of punishment which is always to be avoided. It is simply an unpleasant experience because domestic cats find tinfoil scary because of the noise it makes primarily.

The other way which is also being promoted on social media – both are on the TikTok website – is to frighten your cat with the Christmas tree before erecting it. This means that you hang onto your new Christmas tree and shake it at your cat. They back off and the idea is to frighten your cat with this strange object so that she avoids it when it is erected.

The reason why this is a bad idea is because they can associate you with being frightened as they see you at the end of the Christmas tree 😒. This might harm the relationship between you and your cat. It’s unlikely to be a great problem because it is one minor event but nonetheless it is not clever to give your cat the impression that you are a creature to be avoided because you are scary.

RELATED: Clever tin foil hack helps keep cats away from Christmas trees.

Here are the two videos with screenshots in case the videos don’t work anymore.

Scaring your cat with the Christmas tree – not such a good idea

This is a very popular video on TikTok. I guess nobody is really looking at the questionable method of protecting a Christmas tree. It kind of looks amusing to some people. A veterinarian stated online that it wasn’t a good idea. I don’t need the advice to realise that, and I hope you don’t either. It’s never a good idea to scare your cat with anything when she knows that it’s you who’s doing the scaring.

Traumatized tree ❌ traumatized cat ✅ #catsoftiktok #christmas – the words on TikTok.

@becs.richardsTraumatized tree ❌ traumatized cat ✅ #catsoftiktok #christmas #mariahcarey #christmastree

♬ All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey

Deterring your cat from climbing the Christmas tree with tin foil – a better idea

This is a better method. Perhaps the best method is simply to do nothing and take your chances. Not all domestic cats climb Christmas trees. I don’t know the percentage. Perhaps about 2% of all domestic cats climb Christmas trees at Christmas. Quite a low risk if my estimate is correct.

Note: These are videos from another website which are embedded here. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.