# Can someone tell me how to get her to leave the towels alone



## sonnydense (Apr 8, 2010)

ANY ADVICE IS APPRECIATED.

Our 1 1/2-year-old Calico who we've had about a year just cannot seem to leave the towels on the towel rack in our bathroom alone. She just HAS to pull them down onto the floor. 

The rack is directly over a propane heater, so having that heater on served as a good deterrent during the winter. Winter is gone, though, & summer is coming! Without the heater on, it actually ends up being a convenient way for her to step up and reach the towels in the first place. Keeping the bathroom door closed is not an option because it's a tiny bathroom with no ventilation to speak of & we're already fighting mold. 

I've tried the squirt gun & even putting her in an enclosed area to serve as a "time out". Please, don't anyone waste our time criticizing replying to me with angry posts if you are one who thinks either of those methods are cruel. I've given up on both of those methods already anyway. I'm just asking for new ideas to change this behavior because those towels don't dry very well crumpled up on the floor!

Thanks for any input.


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## Kourtney77 (Apr 1, 2010)

I'm not quite sure what a propane heater looks like, so forgive me if these are dangerous ideas! Haha.

But maybe if you put something overtop of the heater so she couldnt stand on it? I know I had some plastic for my floor, because I had carpet in the entrance way, and one side was the smooth plastic, but the other side was pokey. So if you put it pokey side up then she might not want to stand on it. You could try a citrus smelling air freshner/plug in freshner, that might keep her away if she doesnt like the smell, and your bathroom will smell like oranges! Or if you can block the door with a baby gate or something. Something with holes for ventalation, but not big enough for her to fit through/get over.


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Welcome to CatForum, and I hope we can help. ((great suggestions, K77!))
...though I am afraid you won't much like the advice I'm about to give you.  
For what it is worth, here is my input:

In my experience, it is almost impossible to deter or train a cat away from its' natural inclinations. It is sometimes possible to modify their behavior, or provide appropriate outlets for their behavior ... but almost impossible to completely change or deny expression of their natural behavior. What works best, unfortunately, is changing *our* behavior. I know that may seem unfair to some people, having to make concessions in your own home to accomodate a pet ... but if you love your pet and you want them with you ... you'll make the changes that can keep everyone happy.

We have a cat who will pee on rubber-backed bathmats. _I believe there is some sort of 'attractant' odor that encourages him to pee on that type of rug._ We *must* have the rubber-backed kind to prevent slippage when entering/exiting the shower/tub. To prevent BooBoo from peeing on these rugs, the bathroom doors must remain closed to deny him access. We explain the bathroom closed-door policy to all visitors to our home or we police the door ourselves if the guest is a one-time-guest and not staying with us for an extended period of time. 
If we forget, leave the door open and he *does* pee on a rug? Our fault, not his.

In your bathroom's case, due to the mildew problem from enclosed damp, your bathroom door must remain open. You need to either make the towels not fun or inaccessible. Your efforts at making the towels not fun (_water-spray and time-outs_) have been unsuccessful, so stop. 
Continuing in this same vein will not give you the results you want: your cat doesn't understand and you remain frustrated because your efforts are not working. It is time to try something different. 
You could now consider alternatives such as moving the hang rack so they are out of her reach, either higher on the wall or on the back of the door. If these aren't possible due to the shape of the room you would need to consider removing them from the bathroom entirely, possibly drying in individual bedrooms and the bather must remember to bring their towel(s) with them to the bathroom where they could use the handy rack near the shower during their ablutions while the door is closed and the cat is denied access to the towel temporarily placed their for their convenience. 

One final suggestion, in hopes of detering your kitty from pawing at the towels hanging on the rack over the heater so you will *not* have to move them to accomodate her ... will involve just a little effort and overlooking something completely tacky for a while.
Take some large poster-board, connect however many pieces you need to be able to create an area around the base of the hanging towel(s) that your cat can be at the edge of, but not actually be able to reach the towel(s). 
This will become your No-Cat-Zone. 
Use wide, double-sided sticky-tape and liberally cover one side of each piece of poser-board you need to use to create that barrier between cat/towels. Lay these poster-boards sticky-side-up, using just a little tape at the edges to hold it to the floor so she can't accdentally become stuck to it and drag it with her through the home. Cats usually do not like the feel of things sticking to them and she will train herself to keep away from the towels because when she tries to get close, she feels the unpleasant sensation of stickiness on her feet. 

Now the caveat: _this may work and actually train her away from the towels .... or it may work only when the sticky-boards are on the floor to deter her._ Unfortunately, there is no way of determining which way she will behave because all cats are different and react differently. This could be either a permanant fix and you can eventually remove the sticky-boards or it will remain a temporary fix only while the sticky-boards are present.
Good luck and I hope you found some of my suggestions useful.
heidi =^..^=


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## hoofmaiden (Sep 28, 2009)

I kept my towel on top of the shower curtain rod for the last 6 mos b/c of Jonah.  He now seems to have gotten over his towel obsession and it's been back on the towel rack for a week w/ out molestation. They DO grow out of these things, esp. if you fix it so they can just forget they ever did it.

Still can't put the toilet paper on the roll. It's kept in a cabinet over the toilet.


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## Alpaca (Dec 21, 2009)

Oh yes. I learned the hard way that if kitty wants to play, there's really nothing short of standing there 24/7/365 to stop her. :lol: 

However, as the other members suggested, I agree that the only way is to remove the 'fun factor' from it or remove access entirely. The most success would be to remove the towel entirely from the bathroom into another room where you can close the door. Then if Ms. Kitty grows out of it, you can try and put it back on the towel rack later.

I do find if Miu is enthralled with something, it seems overexposure will take out the 'new' feeling and after a while, she gets bored of the thing. Then she'll leave it alone like she can't see it. For example, wires that so entranced her before. She bit through one of them. We watched her like a hawk and also tried to hide sections of it behind furniture or side-slit paper towel rolls. However, to our surprise, after a while, she totally lost interest. Now they just sit out bare and untouched.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

MY calicos do the same thing and I have the same issue, no ventilation in the bathroom. Fortunately, they're really only interested in the bathroom when I'm in it and I can distract them for the most part. I don't really have any advice, but I feel your pain. atback 

P.S. The squirt gun? I tried that when the brats were tiny - um, I mean the twins - when the *twins* were tiny, and Cali would just squeeze her little eyes shut, brace for the squirt and CONTINUE whatever she was doing wrong. :? 

Calicos are quite willful, aren't they?

Good thing our little kids are cute, huh?


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## sonnydense (Apr 8, 2010)

:idea: Thank you everyone for all the input. Kourtney77's "pokey plastic idea" seems to be the most feasible thing to try 1st. (I would not have thought of that!) I'll get one of them pokey-plastic-whatever-you-call-'em's if I need to, but in the meantime I have a bathmat with a similar design I thought I'd try. It has been a little over 12 hours now & so far, so good! I'll be sure to let y'all know how that all pans out.

Interesting: She won't do it in front of my wife or I when either of us are in the bathroom because she knows it's a no-no, but she WON'T do it when we're NOT home! She only does it when we ARE home. I guess, in spite of all the attention we give her, she can't seem to get enough!


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

sonnydense said:


> Interesting: She won't do it in front of my wife or I when either of us are in the bathroom because she knows it's a no-no, but she WON'T do it when we're NOT home! She only does it when we ARE home. I guess, in spite of all the attention we give her, she can't seem to get enough!


Ah-ha! You have discovered that to a cat ... ANY attention, _even if it is negative attention_ ... is GOOD attention! :lol:


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## sonnydense (Apr 8, 2010)

IT WORKS!!!

It's me again, the one who asked about those towels being pulled down.

I just wanted to say:

THANK YOU KOURTNEY77 FOR THE WONDERFUL IDEA. YOU SAVED THE DAY!

Although I didn't have what I would call "pokey plastic", I had a bath mat that I laid on that heater (almost three months ago now) & my Cali hasn't touched those towels since!

THANK YOU!


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