Anyone want a black kitty?

You took the words from me, you word stealer, Jen!

Our Tigger did that a lot when we first got her. First, her elderly owner died (and I think she used to get up early.) Then, at the shelter, the janitor would feed her wet food at 5 a.m. or so when he got there. So she would talk, and walk around and around on the bed to get me to get up. I have a habit of sleeping with a pillow over my head, and the walking didn't bother me, so eventually, she's learned to wait until I get up.

That said, she's an awful lot better now that I feed her a bedtime snack (about 10 p.m.) of really really quality canned food.

Originally Posted by littleraven7726

i've had the most luck with this: i do a wet food meal at breakfast. one when i get home from work (between 3:30-4pm). then again at around 7, but that one is more of a snack. 2 of my cats eat more wet than dry, and they get cranky and pesky during the night if we deviate from this method.

stimpy eats more like 50/50. so maybe a before bed snack would keep your guy happy?

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This is what I do. The first meal is wet, and I never get up before 5:30 to feed them (that's unfortunately my regular wake up time) and I make them wait until 6-6:30 on the weekends. Even if I'm fully awake I try not to get up at all. Bella has learned that you catch more flies with honey, so she snuggles up to my head and gets her motor going. I'll give her some lovin', but I won't get up to feed them until it's time.

DH leaves dry out when he leaves for work and I feed them another wet meal when I get home around 4 and a very small wet snack when we eat our dinner around 7.

Before bedtime I'll pull out the laser pointer, Da Bird, or a foam bouncy ball and get them good and tired. So far this has worked. We don't have a door on our bedroom, so my only option was to train them out of bugging me. I ignore them if they bother me before it's time to wake up --in fact they don't even bother with me unless they see signs of movement--that's not to say that someone isn't always on watch. DH sleeps like the dead, so no help there

I think the key is to keep a routine. Your boy has learned how to get attention from you and you'll have to train him out of it. It will be painful for both of you, but worth it. I think you have a golden opportunity with your honeymoon coming up. You can use the change in schedule to set up a new routine.

I love all the feeding ideas but I really do not think this is about food... it's about him being needy and wanting us to be up with him. The reason I say that is because he's not a huge wet food fan. He eats it but he's not crazy for it like Frankie is. So, when I get up in the middle of the night he shows NO interest in the food and instead comes back to be with in 5-10 minutes to get/keep me up.

Larke, you mentioned keeping a routine constant. I don't want to shut the door when we go to bed because I LOVE my bedtime snuggles with him and also, when we close the door all night Frankie has out of box experiences (even though she doesn't sleep with us). When I get up at 3:00 am (which I'm ok with... good time for a potty break) thats when I shut the door. Is that ok, as long as I do the same thing at the same time all the time?

I tried to start last night. I took my bank statement to bed with me (he's afraid of the noise window envelopes make) and it seemed to work. He came to the be and starte clawing on the box spring (this is how he rouses me the first time). I shook the envelope and he took off for about 20 minutes. Then he came back soflty mewing. All I had to do was touch the envelope and he was gone. At 3:30 I got up and fed them after he hadn't been bothering me so that he didn't have the association of bugging me=me getting up. That's where it fell apart though because I had a terrible case of indigestion and ended up downstairs until about 4am when I felt better and could law down again. After that I had a sound sleep until my alarm. So, while last night he did get what he wanted (me up with him) I learned that the bill might work as a deterent for him... so it's a start.

Thanks for all the ideas!

Originally Posted by twstychik

I He came to the be and starte clawing on the box spring (this is how he rouses me the first time).

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Oh dear, I hate this! Princess did this for a while to me, and now I have sticky paws all around the box spring of my bed My blankets and sheet are always getting stuck on it, but it keeps her from clawing that darn box spring.

I'm glad you are making some progress!! I hope it continues to improve for you! I know I hate being woken up at night.. and it makes me so grumpy.

Originally Posted by Jenny1124

I'm glad you are making some progress!! I hope it continues to improve for you! I know I hate being woken up at night.. and it makes me so grumpy.

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Ya, me too... and even more so when I finally get Wickett to leave me alone then Matt starts snoring!

does he come to bed when he howls if you call his name? sometimes nabu gets the howlies (as we call it) and if we call his name he will come to bed and go to sleep. nabu has never been the brightest crayon in the box. he acts like he can't find us (guys? where are you? i'm lonely! ) in a one bedroom apartment. it's not a health issue. he's perfectly healthy and done this since he was 2 yrs old. we actually have to keep our bathroom door closed at night because he likes the acoustics. and i don't want to annoy the neighbors. he's a very strange cat sometimes.

He'll come if I call him (Wickett talks alot too.. but very softly when in bed) but he won't settle. I swear he wants us (at least one of us) up and out of bed. He'll come up and pace around mewing then hop down and wait as if to say "Aren't you coming?".

Originally Posted by twstychik

He'll come if I call him (Wickett talks alot too.. but very softly when in bed) but he won't settle. I swear he wants us (at least one of us) up and out of bed. He'll come up and pace around mewing then hop down and wait as if to say "Aren't you coming?".

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i think i'm officially out of ideas. nabu usually settles when mike grabs him, pulls him under the covers and holds him down. nabu worships the ground mike walks on, so he LOVES that. nabu decided shortly after i started dating mike, that he was mike's cat.

I know you said you don't think it's about food but.....

We have an automatic feeder for our girls' dry food. It feeds them at 6am and 7pm, every day. And in the evenings, they get a bit of wet food. So they really don't associate us with food, and definitely don't wake us up looking for food.

We also ignore any demands for attention while we're trying to sleep (unless it's Lily, since she's so shy and sweet and I'm a sucker for her mew ). I have a water bottle by the bed for when they're driving me nuts, and I just need to shake it and they stop, and run off. I don't buy the theory that it traumatises cats. Ours just know the water bottle means to stop doing what they're doing. So if the bill works for you, then do it consistently - shake it when he's being noisy - and every time or he'll just get confused about what he's allowed to do - and maybe try to not to feed them in the middle of the night. Even if they don't want food, they probably see it as part of their routine.

Originally Posted by twstychik

Do you have anything to back this? I'm not trying to be difficult but almost everything I've read says that dry kibble does NOTHING to improve dental condition... thats what tooth brushing is for.

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Or RMBs. They keep teeth clean very well.


People have already said it--but your first problem is that you are reinforcing his behavior. He wants you up, you get up, and then reward him for waking you with food. He sees that it works and it goes on. Saying "just don't get up" is sooooo easy in theory, but I have one that wakes you up for food and attention, and I know it's not that easy.

My suggestion: play like crazy right before you go to bed, get your kitty cat tired out, and crate him. Give him a little food in his crate and stick some toys around (I like to stick them in the bars, mine have a ball working them out). This is what we've done with Emma, the attention hog, and it's worked very well so far. She knows playtime --> dinnertime --> crate time.

I crate both her and Chili beside each other and stick some toys and stuff for them. They fall right asleep, and sometimes when I've stayed up reading, I've seen they really do sleep soundly throughout most of the night. They wake me up around 5-6am banging on cages. I always wait to let them out until they've stopped, though.

I don't think cats need wet food, dry food is better for their teeth.

Dental disease a major cause of lots of other diseases in cats.

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Well I hardly ever feed soft food, if I did its just to kittens and the cats will sometimes get it, but one of my cats has bad teeth, I think its genetics.

And I agree I donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t think the water bottle is traumatizing to cats, but I do think it can be traumatizing to kittens, because they havenâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t really bonded with you and they donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t really understand when they do something wrong. They just see you as lashing out for no reason. However as they get to 6 months they grow a bond with you and they start to understand “training†that you only do cretin things when they do cretin things. Maybe that is the misunderstanding.

my cat usto do that, and she still does from time to time, I just keep pushing her away and she gets it, but now she is so lazy I can't get out of bed, we both like to sleep in together.

Another idea no one has mentioned is his behavior may be cause by lack of attention during the day. I donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t know but do you and your husband work full time? Maybe he sleeps all day and then wants to spend more time with you in the evening, since cats are nactornal he doesnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t understand why you donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t want to keep getting up. and he is not quite old enough to just be lazy with you. Like my cat was, but with age it went away.

I know people do this with dogs and I donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t really see too many differences with cats emotions from dogs, even our emotions are very much the same. but people will get babysitters for their dogs during the day, people will only do it with dogs because dogs will rip apart your house during the day. But cats will just sleep when no one is home, that doesnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t mean he is still not experiencing separation anxiety. but if he has separation anxiety that might be the reason he keeps waking you up, not food. But the fact that you used to give him food was still an act of attention, good attention, bad attention, its all attention and that is what he wants… I bet.
I bet I bet =^.^=

People have already said it--but your first problem is that you are reinforcing his behavior. He wants you up, you get up, and then reward him for waking you with food.

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I see what you mean, you are giving him a treat for waking you up. so he thinks what he did was good. "good boy" and is doing better by gettin you up each day a bit more. lol Even if you are angry and maybe say in an angry voice “leave me alone now” its all still attention.

I feel for you baby, he must be so confused at the moment, but I know with time it will get better ^_^

Yes, I understand that I was reinforcing this behaviour by feeding and last night went great! I think my little man is a VERY fast learner. Before I go into that I want to say that yes, we both work full time but I'm home durring my lunch hour and they both get LOTS of attention all evening after we're home from work.

So, last evening was a little different in that we went shopping after work so we actually had less time with the kits before bed... but it went great! We went to bed and Wickett tried to get me up around 3:15 (later than usual) so I shook the bill and he left. At 3:30 I got up to feed them with out any prompting from him so it was an independant event. IOW, he probably didn't associate my feeding them whith his meowing. I had a little talk with him explaining that he needed to be a good boy and not wake me. I woke up at 6:45 on my own and he was on his look-out in the spare bed room patiently waiting for me. Now, I'm hoping that I can progressivly work toward feeding them when I get up for work but I'm afraid that if I can get Wickett to leave us alone past 5am that Frankie will come wake me... but she IS only about the food. Actually, she used to be our alarm clock until Wickett started beating her to it.

Well, I actually slept ALL night last night. Wickett didn't get mouthy and obnoxious until about 6:40 am which is just before my alarm goes off but I was actually awake (of my own accord) at 6:30. So, when I went down to feed them I gave him lots of extra praise for waiting!

Originally Posted by twstychik

Well, I actually slept ALL night last night. Wickett didn't get mouthy and obnoxious until about 6:40 am which is just before my alarm goes off but I was actually awake (of my own accord) at 6:30. So, when I went down to feed them I gave him lots of extra praise for waiting!

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Wow! That was a pretty quick turnaround!

Originally Posted by kluchetta

Wow! That was a pretty quick turnaround!

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I only hope it lasts. He's a smart little boy even if he is a spaz! I think if I can stay consistent between now and when we leave for our wedding/honeymoon that he'll get the idea. Then when we're gone he'll have no one to wake up. I do have a friend coming to check up on them and play with them but she won't be staying nights.

Do you think he might be sick instead of it being a behavior problem?? What you described is really bizarre and I don't know of any cats who go to those extremes unless they have something physically wrong and they're trying to tell you.

I dunno...I'm no cat expert but it just seems weird that he's so well fed but would hound you relentlessly all night except maybe he's not digesting the food well or something. Worms? disease? Is he getting into something you don't know about?

I also disagree on the "wet food" thing. Like any other creature, cats get their hydration from water, not from food. But the nice thing about cats is that they never eat more than they need, that's why I keep my cats' dishes filled all the time with dry food, fresh water in a clean dish at least 2 times a day. They chow whenever they want but never eat more than a little bit every couple of hours. They are very healthy and lean. Fresh meat is always a treat too...I give them crumbled up hot dogs or chicken a few times a month. Oh and if you like to cook whole chickens, always cook up those giblet bags (don't throw them away!) Heart, liver, gizzards...they LOVE those! I saw my old girl take down a bluejay once and drag it into the bushes...I think bluejay is her favorite treat

I think her cat's fine (unless she really does see signs of trouble), and just needed a little guidance - which seems to have done the trick! I will disagree with some others here though, because a) dry food has been proven NOT to necessarily be any better for teeth - even if it sounds like it should, and b) canned is more nutritious, all things being equal, and it fills them up better. Obviously you have to use common sense and pick good canned stuff, and try to not pick dry with empty calories too, but after they have no choice about their food except to make it obvious that they like this food or that, so giving them both, and occasionally changing flavors, would seem like a good idea and they can then choose how much of which ones they like better. And BTW, it is also NOT true that they'll only eat 'enough' and not too much - have you never seen an overweight cat? There are so many it's awful, and if the food tastes good they'll eat it!