Warning... long post ahead.
This might sound bad to my fellow cat lovers out there: I adore my cats, but one of them is downright annoying 30% of the time. I haven't gotten decent sleep in over two months because of her. Every time I make progress in one area of negative behavior, or eliminate a bad habit, she quickly finds a new (and often more disruptive) one to compensate. I do not know what need drives this... I assume it is attention seeking behavior, but I have tried to play and interact with her more to no avail, and have attempted both punishing and ignoring her annoying behavior. None of this has helped. She views almost every form of correction as a game, including water spraying, and has almost completely stopped responding to verbal commands. As soon as I try to correct her behavior, she is back five seconds later, repeating it. If I ignore it, she persists for LONG periods of time.
She stands at my sliding glass door all night and howls, jumps on furniture near my bed, climbs onto shelves to attack curtains, jumps onto my vanity, the bookshelf... there is simply no end! Curtain climbing, running back and forth, knocking things over on any surface, leaping from one piece of furniture to another... I cannot go a single night without waking up to a loud CRASH! or three at some ungodly AM hour. She only does this in the evenings and through the night, sometimes until four in the morning. I am on the brink of insanity here. I cannot keep her out of the bedroom because of her carpet ripping obsession, and if I try to engage her in play so I can go back to bed, she shows minimal interest. I have gotten in the habit of putting her in her cat carrier when she starts misbehaving, for about ten or fifteen minutes, and that helps... but she runs under the bed now when I come for her, and the game continues on, so I spend a good chunk of my would-be-sleeping time up chasing my cat around. =/ I have to be doing something wrong. This may also sound bad, but I have tried to recalibrate her sleeping schedule by interrupting her day time cat naps in an effort to curb the nighttime crazies. This did make her stop waking me up at five AM, but now the 'midnight special' is a staple in the nightly program.
She is spayed, over one year old, a strictly indoor cat, though she has gone out on the balcony a few times. Maybe that's why she is howling at the glass door? But really, I would just love some suggestions about what else I can try. I am so frustrated by her penchant for turning everything into a bloody game, and I do mean everything. The two younger cats are not nearly so bad at night... please help!
This might sound bad to my fellow cat lovers out there: I adore my cats, but one of them is downright annoying 30% of the time. I haven't gotten decent sleep in over two months because of her. Every time I make progress in one area of negative behavior, or eliminate a bad habit, she quickly finds a new (and often more disruptive) one to compensate. I do not know what need drives this... I assume it is attention seeking behavior, but I have tried to play and interact with her more to no avail, and have attempted both punishing and ignoring her annoying behavior. None of this has helped. She views almost every form of correction as a game, including water spraying, and has almost completely stopped responding to verbal commands. As soon as I try to correct her behavior, she is back five seconds later, repeating it. If I ignore it, she persists for LONG periods of time.
She stands at my sliding glass door all night and howls, jumps on furniture near my bed, climbs onto shelves to attack curtains, jumps onto my vanity, the bookshelf... there is simply no end! Curtain climbing, running back and forth, knocking things over on any surface, leaping from one piece of furniture to another... I cannot go a single night without waking up to a loud CRASH! or three at some ungodly AM hour. She only does this in the evenings and through the night, sometimes until four in the morning. I am on the brink of insanity here. I cannot keep her out of the bedroom because of her carpet ripping obsession, and if I try to engage her in play so I can go back to bed, she shows minimal interest. I have gotten in the habit of putting her in her cat carrier when she starts misbehaving, for about ten or fifteen minutes, and that helps... but she runs under the bed now when I come for her, and the game continues on, so I spend a good chunk of my would-be-sleeping time up chasing my cat around. =/ I have to be doing something wrong. This may also sound bad, but I have tried to recalibrate her sleeping schedule by interrupting her day time cat naps in an effort to curb the nighttime crazies. This did make her stop waking me up at five AM, but now the 'midnight special' is a staple in the nightly program.
She is spayed, over one year old, a strictly indoor cat, though she has gone out on the balcony a few times. Maybe that's why she is howling at the glass door? But really, I would just love some suggestions about what else I can try. I am so frustrated by her penchant for turning everything into a bloody game, and I do mean everything. The two younger cats are not nearly so bad at night... please help!
