Baby Gates & Cats

I have a pretty fat cat who doesn't do much but he was able to jump over the gates without a problem. There were times though when he brought the gate down with him!

Hi S.,
Is the baby gate screwed into the wall or a tension mounted one? If it is a tension mounted one you can raise it a tad off the floor enough so that cat can crawl under it but not enough for the baby to follow. That has worked for my sister. I only had one a tthe top of stairs that is screwed into the wall.

The cats will not get trapped w/out food, water or litter box....they will jump over the gates....I have 2 very lazy cats and they jumped over them when I had them up for my daughter and now for the puppy, even with it raised off the ground because of the puppy they still make it over. If your cats are like mine, once the baby started to crawl they didn't want to be anywhere around her.

Cats are very very smart and they are excellent climbers/jumpers, so I wouldn't worry about it at all. If they are anything like mine, NOTHING will keep them from food haha. Try it out now and just sit back and watch and they will figure it out.

Cats naturally climb and jump. I doubt it will pose a problem for them.

My cats just jump right over our gates without a problem

Well what I did when my son was little and crawling. I would put the gate that has a wood frame and plastic mesh. Cut a hole in one of the corner big enough to let the cat where it need to go. It work really good at my house. But then I had gates that did not have holes cut in those but I just had to make sure that my cat was not there.

They'll just jump over it:)

When my son was little, we had stairs. We put a gate at the bottom & moved it when we went upstairs. We had 5 cats at the time. Only one would jump over it. Food & water was down & there was a litterpan on both levels. We raised it up very slightly so that the cats could go under, but the baby couldn't. The one could still jump over it. It worked very well. Now that we are in an apartment, we put a small one to block the kitchen. Again, up just a little. I was surprised that the others wouldn't jump over it. But, everyone does really well.

I put our baby gates about 3-4 inches off the ground. Our really fat cat was able to go under easily but my daughter couldn't fit so it worked out well.

Our cats did okay with the babygates. We mounted them a little high- low enough to keep Zoey where we wanted her, but high enough for the cats to scoot under. It was a little more difficult for our "lots o'love" cat, but the other three did well with it.

They jump over them mostly. I know, it sounds simple and obvious.

We have four cats, one of whom has three legs. We use baby gates to designate non-dog areas of the house so the cats have some place to hide. All of the jump over the gates, a few times I have caught the younger one sitting on top of the gate bathing. It did take our three legged one a about two weeks to learn to jump gracefully but he masters it now with no issue.

A baby gate would be an excellent way to designate non-baby areas of the house so they can hide as they adjust to the new wanderer in their home.

Hi S.. I'm a mother of a 2 year, a teen and 1 one the way. I have 9 cats. You don't need to worry about the cats getting stuck on the other side of the gate at all. My biggest hurdle so far is having to put one gate right on top of the other one to keep my 2 year old in her room. She's managed to scale the first one. The funny part being that this is in no way hindering the CATS from coming and going in and out of her room. I keep the litterboxes in the basement and a gate at the basement door. No problems there.

Semila,

I have 2 cats myself (both are on the lrg side). I was worried also, but you will be surprised what a cat can overcome. My oldest cat does not jump for anything! Except the gates in our house. I think they will be fine. I started with putting one in their most traveled area of the house. That way they got used to it before we put up the rest. Good luck!

I have 2 cats and a very curious 18 month old. I have my kitchen gated off as well as the stairs and my cats do just fine jumping over the gatesmaybe you could put them up before you really need them just to see how the cats do...good luck

My cats have not been able to figure out the baby gates at all. In fact, they're afraid to even try. So we took an area of the house that the baby is not going to be allowed in, and made sure there was an extra litter box there, so that there is one available inside and outside the gates. Good luck!

Having 4 cats you know that if they want something bad enough they will get it. The cats will jump. You could have 10-foot gates and they would get over it. Besides, cats can hold in their waste for days if they had to. Two words: Don't worry.
~RachaelB

My son grew up around 5 cats... and we had gates on every room in the house. Our cats would leap over them just fine...especially if they wanted something on the other side. I did have one lazy cat who would sit there and meow at the gate because he was too lazy to jump, but if he really wanted over and didn't want to wait, he could make it just fine. I wouldn't worry too much. I'd start putting them up now so that the cats can get used to having the gates to jump over.