Cats aren’t destructive purposefully or out of spite, but rather due to health problems, anxiety, or boredom, so crating them for bad behaviour is only a bandaid solution for the problem. Obviously you shouldn’t be letting your cat eat garbage or use your house as a litterbox, but crating it for hours is just going to make things worse in the long run. It doesn’t address the source of the problem, cats don’t respond to punishment the same way as dogs do, nor do they naturally find kennels comforting in the way dogs do.
Take my cat Kepler for example- he used to pee everywhere. If I’d just crated him when I was gone, he would still pee everywhere when I was home and let him free again. He wasn’t doing it to spite me- he was doing it due to anxiety and a health problem. He couldn’t have stopped it purposefully if he had tried. Instead I got him special litter, restricted his access to rooms he would pee in when I was away, and took him to the vet. Now I can leave him home with free reign in the house no problem. Same with my cat that was chewing cords. I removed his access to cords and addressed the root problem (boredom) by increasing his playtime. Crating would have only made him more bored and destructive.
You address the root of the problem, rather than locking the cat away. Most “bad behaviours” cats do (like the examples you provided) are typically caused by anxiety and health problems, and ignoring them can be potentially harmful to your cat.
It’s also my understanding that dogs do well in crates because they have the instinct to make a “den”- It is comforting to them to have a home base. Cats don’t naturally make dens and as a small animal they can feel trapped and become anxious if they do not have the ability to escape potential predators (this is also why they don’t do well with covered litter boxes).
In another post you used vet clinics as an example of people crating cats, but many clinics, shelters, and cat boarding places do allow their cats to have temporary free reign of a cat room during the day to minimize their anxiety. Cats can develop anxiety easily, and that is expressed in “problem behaviours” such as obsessive chewing, inappropriate litterbox habits, aggression, and meowing. By crating you’re likely only going to exacerbate the problem instead of solving it. It has been proven that keeping cats in cages in shelters for extended periods of time contributes to anxiety and behaviour problems.
An alternative to crating could be making a “cat proof” room that your cat goes into during the day- this allows your cat to feel safe, burn off energy, and practice natural behaviours without becoming anxious. Lucky for us, cats can’t chew through drywall like a husky can.
Regardless, if your cat is doing any destructive or nuisance behaviour for a long period of time, it’s probably time for a vet visit though, or a call to a cat behaviourist. The cat probably doesn’t want to be pooping on the bed or eating plastic just as much as you don’t want it to.
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