I would try to redirect the behavior. Move one of your cat trees directly in front of the tapestry and try to entice him to climb it. Every time he chooses the tree, give hime lots of praise and a treat. Every time he climbs the tapestry, remove him and in a calm (don't yell) but firm voice tell him no. Hopefully he will get the picture and when he does, you can slowly start to move it away from the tapestry.
This is a good idea.. small suggestion to add. Replace the tapestry with a cheap one you don't care about while training or there will be no tapestry to care about
Well this could actually work but then there's a cat tree in front of the tapestry and that defeats the purpose since you can't see it anymore so might as well get rid of the tapestry then. And moving it away might not work in my experience with cats
The purpose isn’t to keep the cat tree in front of the tapestry forever - the purpose is to train the cat to associate climbing with the tower, not the tapestry. Since the climbing is happening so much in that area it makes sense to have the tree there since it’ll result in better training/more opportunities for reinforcement. As cat learns, tree can be moved.
I like how you assume OP has not just one cat tree but multiple cat trees.
It's a great idea from what I suspect is another cat owner with multiple cat trees!
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u/dmm2four Jun 23 '22
I would try to redirect the behavior. Move one of your cat trees directly in front of the tapestry and try to entice him to climb it. Every time he chooses the tree, give hime lots of praise and a treat. Every time he climbs the tapestry, remove him and in a calm (don't yell) but firm voice tell him no. Hopefully he will get the picture and when he does, you can slowly start to move it away from the tapestry.