Help – Cats and Candles?
We live in a 120-year-old wooden house, and I was too afraid to light candles after I got my cats. However, I was freezing so much during the power outage that I was desperate for any source of heat. The obvious precaution, a big bucket with water, didn’t really solve my main concern: I was afraid that Tessa could come too close to a candle with her very fluffy tail. If her tail caught fire, she’d probably run upstairs and hide under my bed.
Our kitchen is at the same time our living room, and the place where we spent most time. I know for sure that there aren’t any hiding spots I can’t access. Believe me, I know all spots after our medication nightmare month.
That’s why I decided to
- Only light candles in the kitchen
- Close the kitchen door
- Have a lot of water available.
- Don’t forget the litter trays: I actually have a lot of sand as well!
So how did Kajsa and Tessa react? Both were of course curious.
… and very careful. Have a look at Kajsa’s paws, she didn’t move any closer to the candle!
She was also investigating the other candles.
… but decided that it’s better to keep some distance.
I’d really appreciate to hear your experiences here: do you light candles when your cats are in the same room? Do you have any special precautions? Do you think my solution is too risky?
I think it’s highly unlikely that they will tilt candles or that their fur will catch fire. However, if this happens, I’m prepared with water and sand. Oh, and of course I won’t leave the room at all.
December 16, 2015 @ 05:05
the candle in the yellow holder needs to go, I am sorry. My Angel Bobo’s tail once was singed (I caught it before it burned) when I was walking by a lit candle and his tail dangled in front of it. They are much too dangerous. I only light candles that are tealights that are WAAAY down in the holder…..
What about a battery operated lantern?
Your tealight in the glass is fine………but that tall one his highly dangerous and the other one might possibly be dangerous as well.
December 16, 2015 @ 05:18
Please be careful with scented candles. The essential oils can be toxic to cats.
December 16, 2015 @ 05:58
We don’t have candles – just because there are so many of us. But when we used to have them, none of the flames were exposed so all were behind glass, so the tall one in the yellow holder would Not Be Allowed – something about floofy tails!
Äiti likes candles and would, maybe, have some if they were little tea lights, and she was supervising us. Oh, and no scented ones of course – we prefer our own smells!
December 16, 2015 @ 11:53
Thank you for telling me about my url. I think what might have happened could be because I did a system restore recently, and had to manually add sign in details on some blogs. I must have left out the “s” and now with autofill it comes up spelled incorrectly. I have changed it here so hope that works.
I agree with your other commenters that the candle in the yellow holder looks to risky, but the others should be okay. I have several tea lights for emergency which are the only sort I use.
December 16, 2015 @ 17:51
We light candles all the time and Tilda never tries to mess with them. I think they can sense the fire and know to stay a good distance.
xoxo,
Bell Fur Zoo’s Mom
December 16, 2015 @ 19:11
We normally don’t light candles but we did when a kitten passed away. We put the candle where boys can’t reach, and we stay in the room while it’s lit. It’s good that Kajsa is very cautious 🙂
December 16, 2015 @ 19:28
My mom’s afraid to use candles with all of us around. She’s also found that candles heat the air only in the summertime. 😉
December 17, 2015 @ 02:41
The mom lights candles with us around. She just makes sure to keep them away from us. For the most part we don’t bother them.
December 17, 2015 @ 06:43
I know you didn’t have a choice with the power outage and you were very careful. I never light candles in my house except on Christmas eve in the dining room where no cats are allowed. I have a lot of fake candles that run on batteries instead.
December 17, 2015 @ 10:51
I think fur is like hair, in that as long as you don’t have a lot of product (hair spray, leave in conditioners, etc), it won’t stay on fire once the heat source is removed, mostly it would crumple up and singe. So that if they did get a floofy tail in the fire and ran, they would not be trailing a big ol’ fireball with them, just singed fur. That said, you’re very wise to be cautious with the kitties around fire!
December 17, 2015 @ 23:42
I don’t bother with candles, but mum agrees that not scented ones at all. Tea lights are probably the safest.