How I set up a TV my cats are allowed to pounce on

Our cats' first screen hung high on a wall, where we were sure they couldn't reach it. They reached it. One of them fell off a cabinet doing it.

Most advice about cats and TVs is about keeping the two apart: mount it higher, spray something that smells bad, cover the stand in foil. That works if you want your cat to ignore the screen. If you put on bird videos or cat TV, you're asking for the opposite, and a cat who is invited to hunt will pounce.

So I stopped trying to keep Karamelka and Kompot away from the TV and set it up to take the pounce. This is what I tried, in the order I tried it: one setup that failed and two the cats use every day.

The short version

• Low beats high. A cat's screen works best for us on the floor. Hung out of reach, it became a climb.
• I anchor it to something solid. The wall upstairs, the cat tree in the office.
• A clear acrylic sheet in front takes the claws.
• I'd check where the TV's legs sit before buying one. Ours needed notches cut.

The three setups we've tried:

A note before the details. This is what I did in my own home, with my TVs, my walls and my two cats. I'm not an installer or an engineer. Follow the instructions that come with your TV and your hardware, and if you're unsure about your wall, ask someone who mounts TVs for a living. No setup makes a TV impossible to knock over.

Didn't work: a screen hung out of reach

What we did. We hung a monitor high on the wall in the living room, so the cats would sit on the floor and watch, and nothing they could touch could break.

What happened. They found a way up by a cabinet nearby. Watching from there was plainly uncomfortable for them: they kept reaching, having to balance on their back legs. Then one of them fell off the cabinet.

Nobody was hurt that we could see, then or later, but that fall worried me, and it was enough. A screen out of reach had turned into a climb, and the fall was the danger, not the claws. It also hung in the most visible spot in the house and never looked right, so the monitor came down.

What I learned. Height doesn't keep a cat away from something it wants. It only decides how far the cat falls.

Works best for us: a TV on the floor

The cats' main TV is now in my office, and it sits on the floor.

Why it works. The cats watch at eye level, sitting or lying down, and nobody jumps from furniture to get to the birds. The TV can still tip, but it can't fall off anything.

What keeps it in place and in one piece:

• It's tied to their cat tree. A long wire runs from screws set in the TV's mounting holes, twice around the tree's pole and several times around the screws. A light tree could tip along with the TV, so this part depends on your tree.
• A clear acrylic screen protector hangs over the front. It hooks over the top of the TV and is held by the Velcro straps it comes with, so paws land on acrylic and not on the screen. On this TV it fit as it came.

Works, with more effort: a TV that has to stay on furniture

Upstairs the TV sits on a console, on its own two legs. That is the setup I trust least: a wide, thin screen on two small feet, on furniture a cat can jump onto. It couldn't go on the floor, so it got two fixes.

Braces to the wall. Two rigid metal arms run from the wall to the mounting holes on the back of the TV. They adjust in length and lock. The TV still stands on its legs, but the wall now holds it against a push from the front or from behind. I chose rigid arms over straps because they hold the TV against tipping both forward and backward, where a strap only works one way.

The same acrylic screen protector. Same kind as in the office. This time it didn't fit.

What went wrong. The sheet hangs down past the bottom of the screen, and this TV's legs sit right where the sheet wanted to be. I cut a notch for each leg. The cuts are rough, with white stress marks along the edges. That is the one flaw in how ours looks. Next time I'd check where the legs sit before choosing a size.

Two soft ottomans sit in front of the console, so a cat that slips off the edge has something soft to land on.

Living with an acrylic screen protector

The protector I bought hangs on the TV and comes off again in about five minutes. Day to day it doesn't bother us, and if we ever want the TV's full picture quality for ourselves, we can take it off.

• Reflections. About the same as on the TV itself. Our TV has no special anti-glare coating, so a TV that has one may show more of a difference.
• The picture. Fine for everyday watching. For the times we want the TV at its best, the protector can come off.
• Build. It's thick and sturdy.
• Looks. Apart from the notches I had to cut for the legs, it looks nice and doesn't spoil the look of the TV or the room.
• The cats. They don't care, and neither do I.

What I'd check before buying anything

• Where the cat will launch from. Any furniture within a jump of the screen is part of the setup.
• Whether the TV can go lower. The floor solved more for us than any hardware did.
• The screen size, to match the protector.
• Where the TV's legs sit, and whether a sheet hanging past the bottom of the screen will clear them.
• The back of the TV. Braces like mine use the mounting holes, so those need to be free.
• The wall. What it's made of and where the studs are.
• The cat tree, if the TV will be tied to it: how heavy and how steady it is.

Parts, cost and time

These are the parts I bought, not a recommendation for your TV. Check the size and weight limits on anything you buy against your own set, and follow the maker's instructions over mine.

When this isn't enough

My two are six years old and pounce like house cats. Some situations need more than what I've described, or a different answer altogether.

• A cat who launches with the whole body. Some cats, and some high-energy breeds, hit a screen hard and climb whatever holds it. A protector and two braces may not be the right answer for them.
• A wall or a cat tree you can't vouch for. A brace is only as good as what it's screwed into, and a tie is only as good as what it's tied to.
• Cables. Nothing here deals with the cords behind the TV, and some cats chew them.
• A cat who gets worked up, not playful. That is about what's on the screen, not the hardware.

Questions people ask

Can a cat really knock over a TV? Yes, it happens. Aviva, a UK insurer, counted 5,837 accidental-damage claims caused by dogs and cats from 2019 to 2023. One of them was a pair of cats with the zoomies who knocked over and smashed a TV while their owner slept (Aviva).

Will insurance pay for a TV my cat breaks? Often not. In the US, homeowners policies generally don't cover your own belongings, a television included, when your own pet does the damage (Allstate). Read your policy before you count on it.

Does a screen protector change the picture? Not enough to bother us. Reflections are about the same as on the bare screen, and ours comes off in about five minutes when we want the TV at its best.

Strap, brace or wall mount? All three are meant to keep a TV from tipping. A wall mount takes the stand out of the picture but leaves the screen bare, and a cat can still jump at it from nearby furniture. Straps and braces hold a TV that stays on its stand. I used braces upstairs and a tie on the floor.

Is cat TV bad for cats? It depends on how it's used. There are two risks: the physical one, which is this post, and frustration, a hunt that never ends in a catch. I wrote about the second in The Science Behind Kitiki.

Why I care about this

I build Kitiki, a TV app for cats. Its hunt scenes are made to be pounced on, so my own TVs had to be ready for that before I could ask anyone else to try it. The checklist version lives on Kitiki's Safety Notice.

Everything above applies whatever your cat watches. If you'd like to see what mine watch, search Kitiki on your TV. It's on Apple TV, Fire TV and Android TV.