Obsessed with Silicone

19256 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by hoofmaiden, Jun 1, 2012

kimmy.j

Discussion Starter · Jun 1, 2012

My 7 year old cat, Jeeves, is obsessed with silicone. We adopted him 2.5 years ago from the humane society and this wasn't a problem until recently....

Our newest addition, a baby boy, who is now two months old just came into the picture. Jeeves has been very good with the baby and he loves that he's not home alone as often as he was...but I do sense jealousy. We haven't changed much around - the room that is now the baby's room has always been fairly off-limits to Jeeves....he still sleeps in our bed with us and gets his two meals and one snack a day. One difference is we now have a nanny that comes into our house three days a week to tend the baby, Jeeves loves the nanny and sits on her lap most of the day.

Anyway, the point of my post. The silicone. If I walk away from my breast pump for 30 seconds, he will grab parts and run under the bed or couch with them and chew them up. At one point he actually dragged the entire pump and pulled the cord from the wall. He swallows a fair bit of silicone, too. I find myself piecing bottle nipples (that he's thrown up) back together to be sure that there's none caught inside of him. He's destroyed over $50 in bottle and breast pump parts.

When I discovered he was stealing silicone pieces off of the drying rack, I quickly bought a new one with a lid. This morning I woke up and the lidded drying rack had been knocked to the floor and another nipple (that I just bought yesterday, mind you) had been eaten. I guess from now on the drying rack will dry in the dishwasher...........

I find myself getting SO MAD at my cat, who doesn't know any better. I want to say that the only reason this behavior has increased is because prior to the baby, there wasn't any silicone around the house. We had those silicone bracelets that raise cancer awareness in the past (pre-baby) and he ate those, too.

What can I do?? My cat is a little sneak! With a baby around, it's especially hard to keep these silicone pieces away from the cat, it's like he sniffs them out and gets them as quickly as possible when you turn your head!

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kimmy.j

Discussion Starter · #2 · Jun 1, 2012

I should mention, Jeeves has been made less of a priority since the baby was born. Our son takes a lot of our time and patience and needs constant care....while the cat really doesn't. He really doesn't get as much play time (with us) as he once did. He's great at playing by himself, he has toys that he chases around...but it's not the same.

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MowMow

· #3 · Jun 1, 2012

Haha, little stinker! I don't have any advice other than to look for another place to store the drying pieces and to keep them away from him as much as possible. Maybe an upper cabinet that can be cleaned out and the drying rack can get tucked into there?

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cinderflower

· #4 · Jun 1, 2012

mow mow's right, you're going to have to "hide" these rare and valuable toys lol. you will not be able to teach the cat that bottle nipples are off-limits. i had to do the same thing with my trash, slick book or magazine covers and anything leather. i have two cats that chomp anything plastic or rattley--why they do it, i will never know. it must be the cat equivalent to popping bubble wrap. one just bites things if i leave them out where she can get them. paper, plastic, anything. when i only had her, homework papers, spiral notebook covers, letters, etc. with all these tiny holes bitten into them were kind of funny ("my cat ate your homework") but baci will turn the trash cans over and spread everything all over the place, looking for something to bite. he does it when he's not hungry, he just does it. he also will eat pieces of whatever he's chewing on, because i've seen him lol. he must never eat enough of it to throw up but i don't want him ingesting foreign objects. i have to flush dental floss down the toilet because he will dig it out of the garbage and then if it's lying around, any of the cats will eat it.

so i've been reduced to one large trash receptable the cats can't get into. it's not very convenient, but it's either that or trash everywhere. i can't use the cabinet under the sink because that's the favorite place for two of them to hang out. i'm not putting trash in the overhead cabinets, but i suggest that's where you put your drying rack and nipples. (or anything he will chew/eat.) you might have to put your breast pump in one of your dresser drawers.

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hoofmaiden

· #5 · Jun 1, 2012

A surprising number of pica (eating non-food items) cases involve plastic. Do what you can to keep your kitty away from this stuff--I give this warning from experience! My cat Loki was obsessed w/ plastic--he ate the plastic trash can liners (until I built a huge wooden box that the kitchen trash can sat entirely inside), and any other plastic thing he could find.

Then he got VERY sick. He wasn't acting like it was a foreign body, and when labwork showed mild increase in BUN I panicked (had recently lost a cat to kidney disease) and went to the nearby veterinary teaching hospital. They did x-rays and lo and behold--inside Loki were not one but THREE 2" segments of the sproingy part of the cord to the spare (non-cordless) phone. We had it stored under the phone cabinet for emergency power outages. Those cords are HUGE--how he got it down his gullet the first time I have NO idea--then he did it TWICE MORE!

The pieces were in 3 separate parts of his colon so they had to go in 3 different places. It was a hard surgery and a hard recovery. He did well, though, and lived a happy 5 additional years (to the age of 18).

And I never, ever underestimated his ability to eat ANYTHING plastic every again.

I recommend that you be similarly careful!

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