Submitted by megan on Wed, 01/28/2009 - 22:35
Does anyone want a cat?
I swear to god, most of the time she's great. But since I fed her by accident at 3:30 am after Shelley's party, she's been making me crazy. Off my nut effing crazy.
For two nights after that fateful night, she started demanding food at 4:30. Sitting at the bottom of the stairs, calling loudly up to any creature with opposable thumbs who might save her from her empty bowl plight.
Last night, however, she started the yowling an hour earlier. That is in the ante meridiem, my friends. Though it was black as pitch outside; well, beyond the streetlight that makes my room glow like a sitcom bedroom after the lights go out.
She didn't yowl the entire time, not a constant mrooowlwrwowlrllwrowwel or anything. But often enough that I didn't get more than a few minutes sleep until 7, when I finally relented and stomped downstairs.
Worse yet, mostly it's a normal yowl, but occasionally it's this otherworldly garble, deep in her throat, some kitten demon demanding payment. It is uncanny.
I don't know what to do. Her schedule, which was working pretty well, was a feed at 7 or 8 am, a feed around 5:30 pm, and another feed, a bigger one, as late as I could push it. At least 11 pm, preferably closer to midnight.
Besides that one night, her schedule hasn't changed. I don't want it to change, because I'll be damned if I'm going to feed her at 4 every morning. I've tried calling her up to my bedroom, and that sometimes works, at least for a few minutes of purring. I've tried going downstairs and getting her and shutting her in my room, which worked the first night, but since then has only led to her pawing the bottom of the door and meowing in my room instead of at the foot of the stairs.
Tonight, I'm trying earplugs. I've warned M-C that there'll be no relief. I'm hoping that a lack of response on my part will send Freya back to whatever soft thing she was curled up on before she decided it was breakfast.
Shelley's theory is that as pets get older, they get crankier/stinkier/messier so that we miss them less when they're gone. Seems as good a theory as any to me, because if the earplugs don't work, I may have to throw the cat out with the kitty litter.
Unless you have any other suggestions for me and my demonic cat?
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11 comments postedI know you don't want to have an obese cat.... but better an obese cat than a sleep-deprived woman, right? Can you load up her bowl with dry food before you go to bed? Or, is she asking for wet food? I'd take her off your hands, but I've got full livestock over here. One of my cats sleeps in the basement at night because he is out of control. That's another option. So, I guess my two suggestions are 1) overfeeding, or 2) locking up in the basement. The cat bloggers are going attack me for this...
Cats, unlike dogs, are still largely un-domesticated socially, je pense, and would prefer to snag birds and squirrels and mice and whatnot to keep the belly full. But since we've coddled the wee buggers for our own various reasons and, especially in the city, restricted their roaming for their own safety, they just up the ante.
If I can't catch a mighty fine rat cuz there ain't none around on account of you humans' disgust of the rodents, well, get that can-opener goin'!! You're the one with opposible thumbs around here, eh?
You could try to pull a fast one and have a friend or neighbour do the feeding only once a day for a while - she ain't gonna starve but it could upset her equilibrium harmlessly - and she might be a bit more accepting of a new regime. You might need earplugs for a bit.
I'm thinking it doesn't do any of us much harm to have our equilibrium disrupted once in a while.
Starla used to insist on a 3 a.m. feeding. For years. We bought an automatic feeder with a timer that we would set up before going to bed and we'd put a little bell on the lid so she'd hear it when it popped open (how Pavlovian, I know). She ate, we slept, everyone was happy.
Same thing with Duncan. As soon as he realized GC could be harassed into getting up at the crack of dawn to feed him, he started pushing the edges of the crack of dawn.
Cats respond well to routine, but they're very good at exploiting exceptions to the routine. I think your best approach is to stick to your guns and refuse to cave to her demands. After about a month I think she'll give up.
I like Shelley's theory. My old cat, Flea, lived to be 19 and I honestly didn't like him very much towards the end. He was demanding and he threw up all the time and he drooled stinky drool continuously. I felt guilty for not liking him anymore, but he really wasn't very likable anymore.
Did you say cat!? I could help you with that. We coyotes love cats! But if you want a reversible solution, you might want to try some of those other ideas up there, first...
Exactly the same problem over here, my friend, and we know so well that howl you describe. Sounds like she's down the well, screaming HHHHHHHHHHHEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP! to anyone nearby.
So. We have no idea how to fix it. But we do feel very sorry for you. Maybe we should take turns and one of us should have both of them for a time? 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off? Cat-sharing?
Magi tried that a few years ago, too. I ignored her completely, and made sure she did not hear that she had woken me up. It took about a week and it was over... So, I recommend what you are planning to do, since it worked for me... good luck!
Wow! Thanks everyone.
You know, coyote, if you had asked yesterday morning....
Otherwise, I'm happy to report that the earplugs worked quite well. I couldn't hear her, and M-C can apparently sleep through anything. So even if she doesn't change her habits soon, I won't know the difference.
If for some reason it doesn't work, I'll try the automatic feeder. I don't know why I didn't think of that!
And if that doesn't work, Grace, you're on for cat sharing. Double the trouble and fun, more than twice the peace betimes.
If the auto-feeder becomes necessary there was a thread on AskMe with a slew of recommendations. I have an orange disaster-cat who sings at night but that is from boredom more than hunger. I have learned to sleep through it but earplugs is an idea to keep in mind.
Careful with the automatic feeder. My cat, Bossa, may she rest in bitchy peace, figured out how to jam her paw up into the feeder so she could pull food down in the bowl at any time she pleased. She was fat to begin with, and then, well, let's just say it wasn't pretty. We couldn't figure out why we were going through so much food until one night we heard her chomping away at 2am and caught her in the act, paw jammed and all. She had no shame and continued on, looking at us like, what? You gonna do something about it?
Oh my god, that's hilarious. So totally cat like. Freya's on wet food, so it would have to be an automatic feeder with a lid that flipped open. But it wouldn't surprised me if she learned to get that open.
But so far, the earplugs are working like a charm. I have no idea if she's still yowling or not, which works for me and she doesn't seem overly upset in the mornings.