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We're breaking the habit tonight! (Cat Thread)
Jaded
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey guys... I have a problem of the feline variety, allow me to start with back story.
May of this year I accepted a job 2 hours away from where my girlfriend and I lived, so I moved out this way to start my job while my lovely lady sold our old home. With her was my cat (Alias) who is 6 years old. Alias has always been a... emotional... kitty. Hates kids, loves adults, can go from friendly to frustrated in about half a second.
In August my girlfriend got a job out here and she moved out to where I was staying (with family) until we could find our own home, however where we were staying there was a black lab pup, so I asked my parents to watch over Alias until we found our own place, which they happily agreed to do.
The place in which my girlfriend and I owned before we moved had no fence, so we never let the cat out in fear that she would run away, get hit by a car, etc etc... mom and dad however had a fully enclosed back yard. When my mom and dad get up in the morning (0430 - 0500) they would brew a pot of coffee and go sit on their patio, read the paper, watch the birds, whatever it is that mom and dads do at that ungodly hour. Now, of course the cat was up so they started taking her out in the yard with them, which she apparently loved.
So, in new city my girlfriend and I found a place finally that we moved into on September 15th. The cat was leery around the new place for the first 3 weeks or so, getting her bearings, learning all the places she can hide and finding all the sun beams were her first priorities.
Now however, that she is comfortable she is up every morning at 0400 and jumping up on my bed begging to be let outside (This has been going on for about 4 days now). Day 1, I let her out and stayed up, but man... I go to bed at midnight, 4 hours sleep kills me for work. Nights 2 - 4 I have gently nudged her off the bed, but she keeps coming back every 10 minutes or so. I closed the bedroom door on night number 2 after the third time that the cat came back (lol?) and laid back down. Now... I sleep with ear plugs in (airport nearby and a fire hall down the street) so I don't hear much while I snooze... however, the unearthly, mournful wail that my cat let out from the other end of the house by the back door easily penetrated my 35 decibel earplugs. So I got up, went and let her out and brewed a pot of coffee.
Day 3 and 4 I have got out of bed, closed the bedroom door and crashed on the couch as I didn't want her meowing(?) to wake the girlfriend.
Long story short, cat wakes me every morning at 0400 and whines to be let out, is there a way to break this habitual behaviour?
Cat facts:
- female
- spayed
- has all claws
- 6 years old
- short hair
- likes munching on grass
- likes eating dragonflies
- hates other cats
- whines if she doesn't get her way
I don't want to take to spritzing her with a water bottle as she's finally (in the last year) really warmed up to my girlfriend and I and lets us nuzzle and pet her.
Save me! Save my sleep... H/A forums... your my only hope...
May of this year I accepted a job 2 hours away from where my girlfriend and I lived, so I moved out this way to start my job while my lovely lady sold our old home. With her was my cat (Alias) who is 6 years old. Alias has always been a... emotional... kitty. Hates kids, loves adults, can go from friendly to frustrated in about half a second.
In August my girlfriend got a job out here and she moved out to where I was staying (with family) until we could find our own home, however where we were staying there was a black lab pup, so I asked my parents to watch over Alias until we found our own place, which they happily agreed to do.
The place in which my girlfriend and I owned before we moved had no fence, so we never let the cat out in fear that she would run away, get hit by a car, etc etc... mom and dad however had a fully enclosed back yard. When my mom and dad get up in the morning (0430 - 0500) they would brew a pot of coffee and go sit on their patio, read the paper, watch the birds, whatever it is that mom and dads do at that ungodly hour. Now, of course the cat was up so they started taking her out in the yard with them, which she apparently loved.
So, in new city my girlfriend and I found a place finally that we moved into on September 15th. The cat was leery around the new place for the first 3 weeks or so, getting her bearings, learning all the places she can hide and finding all the sun beams were her first priorities.
Now however, that she is comfortable she is up every morning at 0400 and jumping up on my bed begging to be let outside (This has been going on for about 4 days now). Day 1, I let her out and stayed up, but man... I go to bed at midnight, 4 hours sleep kills me for work. Nights 2 - 4 I have gently nudged her off the bed, but she keeps coming back every 10 minutes or so. I closed the bedroom door on night number 2 after the third time that the cat came back (lol?) and laid back down. Now... I sleep with ear plugs in (airport nearby and a fire hall down the street) so I don't hear much while I snooze... however, the unearthly, mournful wail that my cat let out from the other end of the house by the back door easily penetrated my 35 decibel earplugs. So I got up, went and let her out and brewed a pot of coffee.
Day 3 and 4 I have got out of bed, closed the bedroom door and crashed on the couch as I didn't want her meowing(?) to wake the girlfriend.
Long story short, cat wakes me every morning at 0400 and whines to be let out, is there a way to break this habitual behaviour?
Cat facts:
- female
- spayed
- has all claws
- 6 years old
- short hair
- likes munching on grass
- likes eating dragonflies
- hates other cats
- whines if she doesn't get her way
I don't want to take to spritzing her with a water bottle as she's finally (in the last year) really warmed up to my girlfriend and I and lets us nuzzle and pet her.
Save me! Save my sleep... H/A forums... your my only hope...
I can't think of anything clever.
Jaded on
0
Posts
Really I have found cats to be REALLY stubborn and thats because they see themselves as the boss in any owner-cat relationship, which is why I dont like them...
If I'm not about to spritz her I certainly am not going to smack / bonk / slap her on the noggin... it's just not in my nature.
I love cats, the sheer attitude they have over dogs (I've had 2 dogs and this is my first cat) the independence. I find them far more entertaining and cuddly then either of my dogs (Toy poodle and a Bishon / Shitzu) were.
Either that or lock the cat out of your room at nights.
As for training cats with spritzing, I dont know if its just me, but it depends on the cat, some might just think your playing with them depending on their personality.
For her to get over it, you need to not let her outside. At all. Ever. Especially not at 4am. Don't play with her, don't interact with her at all. Ignore her at 4. You're beat already, so tonight, go to bed at 8 or 9 or something, so when she wakes you up at 4 you can get to all the things you didn't do last night -- read the internet, do the dishes, play video games, whatever. Then go into work. Do NOT interact with her (unless she comes up to you to be petted, etc.). And definitely do not let her outside anymore, or else she'll keep doing the same thing.
Terrible idea. Cats don't respond well to physical punishment. Scaring them is the best way, so a water bottle or even a very sudden and loud "BAD!" can deter behavior. Other than that, it's a bit like raising a small child. Ignore the behavior and DO. NOT. GIVE. IN. Just like a kid, you'll teach the cat that whining and yowling are effective methods for getting her way.
EDIT: Physical punishment is bad for cats because not only does it not work, it deters a different behavior: being friends with you. Hitting a cat just makes it afraid of you, not the behavior you want stopped.
In regards to this. Would she not be, I suppose for lack of a better word, conditioned to realize she can not go out until people are awake and doing their routine? As I said, the last couple days I have just crashed on the couch after the wake-up call and she seems to be placated until the alarm clock goes off. I don't want to limit her physical activity (which she gets tonnes of outside)... I just want her to realize that we don't all cat nap.
=^.^=
If she never goes outside, she'll stop trying to wake you up in order to let her out. She may still want you awake, but that's why you shouldn't interact with her. Most cats don't care if you're awake or asleep, as long as you're around a space on a schedule, but she's not waking you up to play with YOU -- she's going outside, and then you're crashing on the couch. You can play with her at night, so that she's tired, and "expects" to play with you at night -- not in the morning.
told you so!
love,
me
If she really likes eating grass, you could get her one of those little cat-grass trays.
Even if it's just in a fenced in back yard?
I know she "could" get over the fence if she tried, but she seems quite content to just veg outside.
If I had any kind of mechanical apptitude I would look into something like that. how do they work in regards to having 2 doors though? We have a storm door on the outside and a wooden door on the inside. I imagine the Storm Door would have to come out?o_O
This. Especially this. The amount of diseases that an outdoor or partially outdoor cat is exposed to drsatically reduces their life expectancy. If other cats happen by, or even have been through the yard recently, you're talking potential exposure to Feline Leukemia, FIV (basically, kitty AIDS), and any number of other things. Any mosquito out there could potentially be carrying heartorm larvae - if your cat is infected, it's fatal (it's treatable in dogs - but that very treatment is fatal to cats' systems).
If you want to continue to let Alias out, just make certain she's 100% up to date on her shots and taking a monthly dose of heartguard or similar.
As for behavior adjustment, the silent treatment is one o fthe best. Another - and this takes a small commitment on you or your girlfriend's part - is to try to exhaust the kitty at bedtime. One of ours used to play all hours of the night when my wife and I moved in together. The worst part was he'd play in the bedroom - usually running right over us both several times throughout the night. We found that playing with him before bedtime until HE lost interest eliminated the problem. We used to toss around little toy mice, he'd actually fetch them and bring them back for us to toss again. Any kind of active toy should do the trick.
You can actually put them in the wall near the door as well. My house has one leading to the yard since all we have are sliding glass doors. And, they have little plates you can put over them as well if you ever change your mind on letting her out.
Personally, I don't let my cats outside because I don't like the whole get hit by a car thing... and the cat next door would constantly want to beat them up. :P
Other cats can and do get over the fence, exposing your cat to highly contagious and often deadly feline diseases. Plus, you never know when your cat will get a wild hair up her butt and leave your fenced yard; you don't even know if she's doing it now, because you're letting her out when you're not right there to watch her.
Plus, birds and other small animals do come in and out of your yard freely, and your cat is very likely eating them. This is a bad thing both for the bird population and for your cat, since she can get all sorts of nasty parasites that way.
Just keep her inside.