Howling Cat, Sleepy Owner

I wonder if anyone out there can help me solve this problem. My cat is keeping me awake all night long!

About 2 weeks ago I brought home a beautiful, 6-yr old spayed female from a local shelter. Millie has such a good temperment, very loving & outgoing. Everything is going very well except for one large problem: For the last week she has howled all night long. She will howl for 10 minutes at a time usually but sometimes she howls much much longer. She does it as frequently as every hour.

I have tried going to get her to comfort her, it only seems to encourage her. I have tried to ignore her, but how do you ignore a howling cat for an hour at 3:00 a.m.?! I have taken her to the vet and there is nothing wrong with her. If I go to pick her up while she's quiet she will stay quiet for a little longer than usual but she will always start up again.

My apartment is a small loft with no doors separating rooms so I can't shut her out of the bedroom or in any other room. There are no other cats in the house. I have noticed that she is louder if she has one of her toys to play with so I have been sure to put them away at night.

I am committed to keeping Millie with me and making this work. But I can't keep losing sleep like this! Any experience or insight would be so greatly appreciated!

It sounds to me like she has trained you to get up when she howls! I was just reading about this.

http://www.greatpets.com/home/cats/b...oblems/yowling

I found out that cats are nothing if not persistent - if I do one new thing, he expects the exact thing to happen at the same time the next day, and the neext, and the next......

Hello!
I have two howlers so I feel your pain! LOL! Mine are female spayed former ferals that over the last year we've had them have developed a yowling thing whenever they ahve a squishy ball in their mouth. they will come into the bedroom(or whereeverwe are at) with the ball yowling the whole time and when we acknowledge them they will drop the ball and run over to be petted. They do this at night also but a kissing sound and a light pat on the bed usually brings them into the room for late night petting.
I also have two neutered males that will climb on our chests for late night petting. We've gotten so good, we can do it in our sleep!
Try patting the bed and calling her name and hopefully she will come into your room looking for scritches and lovin and the yowling will stop for the night. I hope this helps.:tounge2:

We have an 8 year old neutered male stray we adopted a year ago. He used to do this yowling every night, and it was awful. But, now we spend the hour before we go to bed every night cuddling him and scratching his head (which he loves) and then we bring him to bed with us. He never stays in bed -- in fact he immediately jumps down as soon as we put him on the bed. But, spending the hour cuddling and inviting him to be in bed with us has cured him of his yowling. Maybe this will work for you!

A cat I used to have would howl at night. For him we had to find out how he liked to sleep. He liked to sleep in my dad's chair so we would put his bed on the chair at night for him. Also, we kept him on a strict schedual so he knew when it was bedtime and time to settle down, be quiet and sleep. It did take quite some time before he stopped howling but he did stop and all were happy.

Thanks to everyone for their help and suggestions. I have tried keeping Millie active and cuddling lots before bed time and that has seemed to work a bit. Keeping her to a schedule seems to have a good effect as well. I was out of town for a wedding this weekend and had a friend cat sitting for me... last night we seemed to have regressed some as a result. Nonetheless, I feel more confident that we'll get over this hurdle. I will keep you all posted. Thank you! Thank you!