As the days continue on with the new kitten in the house, I think it’s safe to say we’ve gotten past the ‘breaking-in period’. Several routines have been established, yet much more need to be introduced. Certainly, she’s gotten over her shyness around us and has more than a few times tripped us up merely by being underfoot and just trying to be with us.
She still sleeps in a separate bedroom as I’m not certain it’s the right time for her to be roaming/patrolling the house without supervision. It’s been slow going to get the house completely kitten-proof. I definitely got spoiled by my previous cat Rochester. As an adult cat, he had 12 years to get used to the house, understand which portions were ‘off-limits’ and which ones he could safely traverse without getting into trouble. Unfortunately I don’t remember at what age we allowed him to go about the house unsupervised.
Case in point. While I was typing this, there was a loud crash behind me. Bella apparently tried to either jump up on the tv table and got entangled in the wires leading to the sound bar and the Echo Dot, OR she was playing with the cords, got entangled, spooked and pulled them BOTH off the table, alerting me.
We have an old bottle of what we call ‘Cat Begone’, the actual product’s name is “Keep Off“, which works most of the time. The addendum is that it has to be reapplied daily, as the scent dissipates. I’ve been looking for homemade remedies that will work just as well and won’t cost as much, and found one that uses citrus, lavender oil and dish soap. My wife mentioned that we tried a similar recipe for our previous cat, but he wasn’t deterred by the citrus scent. Either it wasn’t strong enough, or he wasn’t bothered enough. The commercial variety seems to work, for the time being.
Bella will learn, as will we, over the coming days, weeks and months. I just hope nothing big (or expensive) pays the price. Time will tell.