Question
Dear Tracy:

I have had various house plants - spider plants, cacti, and philadendrons mostly - in my house for decades. I have also had a long line of roommates (usually 1 roommate every 5 years) all of whom have been cats. In 15 years, we've had about 10 cats here. In all that time, none of the cats have had any problem at all with the plants. However, the reverse is often the case. The cats will destroy the plants. Most of the time what happens is that the beautiful plants will be destroyed by the roommate seeking to protect the cats, and then they'll say: "well, the experts said the plant was dangerous." Meanwhile, the plant is lying there dead either because the cat or the roommate killed it, and the cat and roommate are always fine. I never say anything of course. I just sort of laugh internally.

Keep in mind, also, that all of the cats -- every one of them -- have had access to these plants and in rare cases have gnawed away. One cat loved spider plants. It killed all 20 or so spider plants in the house. The roommate, naturally, couldn't have cared less about the plants but was concerned for the cat (which survived on a steady diet of the spider plants for 5 years).

I have a lot of respect for carefully evaluating the risk of the plants relative to pets, and measures should be taken to protect the pets within reason. However, if the experts print POISON-DANGER for every plant in the history of mankind (like many of the experts do), they are disregarding the fact that cats, do, in fact live in the wild. Urban cat owners are oblivious to the fact that anti-freeze is a far greater unnatural threat in a metropolitan area than the plants that cats would encounter naturally in the environment. I am not a feline expert, but my sense is that cats (as do all animals) have a healthy sense of what is and what is not generally harmful. To me, that doesn't mean take unnecessary risks, but it also means that there has to be a reasonableness aspect to it.

A lot of these websites just impart the fear of God about every single plant in history and it strikes me as very poor advice. Protect the cat? Yes. Be careful with known threats? Yes. But categorically prohibiting all house plants in a house because of plants that might represent no greater threat to a cat than, say, the damn laundry detergent, is unreasonable.

My current roommate has been reading all the websites and is refusing to allow any of the plants into the house, which of course, given that frost is coming, will kill all the plants. Stupid.

But she wouldn't be taking such a ridiculously one-sided approach to this if a lot of the web sites were a little more circumspect about it. In ways, it reminds me of the "Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery" warning on virtually all prescription drugs. Those are there to protect the pharmaceutical companies from law suits, but of course, you can't lie down and take a day off work because you took an aspirin.

Assuming you can interpret my rant, can you impart some reasonableness and sanity into the doom-like warnings across all web sites about plants and cats? Why didn't the ten cats that have lives here 15 years croak when they feasted on these plants all these years?

Thanks.

Regards,

Jim

Answer
Hi Jim,
   One of the reasons that a lot of experts will label almost every plant as a possible danger to pets is that even a plant that is not considered poisonous can still cause a potentially life threatening reaction in an animal that eats it. Especially young or very old animals.
Cats in fact do NOT have any instinct that tells them the difference between a 'safe' plant to chew and a poisonous one. A plant that does not have a offensive odor to the cat or has an immediate foul taste can and will likely be nibbled on by the cat. Not all poisonous plants have foul odors and/or taste.
Cats need at least a little bit of vegetation in their diets. Cats that live outside or allowed to go out will eat grass, but cats that are kept indoors are limited to whatever they can get that is brought in.

I have had a lot of houseplants and a few cats for many, many years.There are a few things you can do to keep the cats from chewing the houseplants besides putting them out of the cats reach (which is always the best thing to do).
The best thing that has worked for me is to grow a pot of cat grass for the cats to chew on. All of my cats have preferred the cat grass to my houseplants and as long as they have a pot of it they will chew the cat grass and leave my houseplants alone (one exception is one of my male cats, he just loves to chew on Prayer Plants so I keep those out of his reach).
You can get a small bag of cat grass seeds at most pet stores (such as Petsmart) for about $1.99 Once planted they will grow very fast, in about a week you will have a pot of cat grass about 6 inches tall.

Other things you can try is to spray the leaves with a bitter apple or hot pepper spray. A food grade orange oil or extract may work as well. For big floor plants you can try putting foil on the floor around the plant. Cats do not like to step on foil so that might keep the cat away from the plant until it learns that the plant is 'off limits'.

Get a couple of wire racks to put the plants on, most cats wont step on them (none of mine will), and have a pot or two of cat grass available to the cat to chew on. It may be all you need to keep the cat off of your houseplants which will make you, your roommate and the cat happy this winter.

I hope this helps. If you have any questions or need additional information please don't hesitate to ask.
          Thanks
              Tracy