My cats behavior. Hopefully someone can answer

I have three cats. 2 females and a male. The oldest one Sparkles, is 7, Twinkles, the male is 5 and the youngest weewee (Ms wee) is 3.

Sparkles in the self proclaimed Alpha because out of a house with 3 cats and 2 dogs, no one messes with her. Lately she has had allergy problems but they are getting better.

Twinkles is the fat lazy cat. He and sparkles get along, but occasionally get into small fights. He has several odd behaviors. He has "people phases" where he will prefer one person for awhile, then move on. He only does this to me, but when I'm asleep and he wants out of my room, he'll come and tap his paw on my face, getting more forcefully if I ignore him to the point of biting my ear.

Weewee was rescued by me when I found her alone as a kitty with no mother. She prefers me over everyone else (she only licks me and prefers to be around me) and does not get along with sparkles, often fighting with her, or chasing (I think they are playing at this point) She prefers small, dark, quiet places.

We also have 2 dogs, both will not ever harm a cat. Sparkles *Tolerates* the dogs. Twinkles doesn't care if they are there with him, and weewee only likes our Lab which acted like a mother when she was a kitten. (our dog ended up in several false pregnancy's because of this)

I do have several questions about their behavior.

Starting with sparkles, can someone confirm if she has established herself as the alpha cat of the house? I also would like to know why twinkles has this unusual method of waking me up. That is all.

It sounds like Sparkles rules the roost alright! There is nothing unusual in the way that Twinkles wakes you; Harry digs his paws into my neck and drools all over me when he wants me to wake up and feed him. It's just his way of getting you to listen to him!

Cats don't really do dominance things the way dogs do.

Sparkles "seems" Alpha because she wants to be left alone and she enforces it. But she's not interested in dominating the other cats. She wants to be left alone.

Some cats only want human companionship. They are not interested in other animals. This would be especially true if Sparkles is not feeling well because of allergy issues.

We have a Gamma cat, Puffy, who will cooperate with James Bond on pressing issues, such as mealtime or litter box changes, but mostly doesn't care for other cat attentions. We have to make the effort to seek him out for alone time and let him have his spaces where the other cats don't bother him.

Try to do this for Sparkles. Make time in the morning and evening that is just for Sparkles, such as taking her into the bathroom while you put on makeup and can talk to her. Seek her out for special attention at bedtime, whether she sleeps with you or not. Such cats as Sparkle sometimes won't assert themselves for attention if it means interacting with other cats, so you have to do it for her. See if she likes that.

At this point, you have trained Twinkles that if he bites your ear, you will always get up and let him out. You can leave the bedroom door open, you can let Twinkles train you in a different way, but obviously he needs food or a litter visit during the night, and how else is he going to let you know?

If you're rewarding Twinkles by getting up when he bites your ear, then you've trained him to do it - and similarly he has trained you to obey his command!

My Sonic was a horror for trying to get us up to play with him, cuddle him, and give him the constant adoration he deserves (he's the most demanding, human-loving cat you could imagine) when we first got him as a 13 week old kitten. He would drop toys on our faces - when dry toys didn't work, he took to soaking them in his water bowl first to increase the shock value upon impact, - jump up and down on our heads, quite literally try to dig us out of bed by clawing at the covers and the mattress.

We knew right from the get-go that if we gave an inch, he'd take a mile. He's an Oriental and they only have to have something work for them once and they'll remember it and try to get it to happen again for an awful long time - persistence and intelligence can be a dangerous combination! We knew we would have to be every bit as determined as he was. If he woke us, we couldn't get up, because we'd have taught him the all important lesson that his ploy had worked. Because we were still going through introductions with Radar, and because Sonic was still too little to have the run of the house beyond the kitten-safe areas while unsupervised, we made sure that everything he needed was provided in the bedroom, so we didn't have to provide him with anything he'd need by getting up - litter, water, and dry food to snack on was in the bedroom with us. Once he had woken us, we would lie with the covers over our heads, wide awake, with him dropping toys, digging, and complaining very vocally on top of the covers. When he gave up and curled up next to us quietly, he was rewarded with petting and being allowed under the covers.

Within less than 2 weeks (probably about 10 days) he was sleeping in until whatever time we got up. If he was awake and feeling lively he would go and play with toys by himself without bringing them onto the bed, but mostly he just curled up next to us and slept until we got up of our own accord - and he still does to this day, we've not had any repeat behaviour. In fact he has got so attached to 'quiet cuddle time' curled up quietly under the covers next to us, that he now complains when we get up! Excellent morning behaviour for such a young cat