Our three-year-old neutered boy, Marlon, has decided that he is king of the household. He and our other cat have worked this out between them, so that isn't a problem. What is an issue is that he is continually trying to assert his dominance over us.
He's constantly underfoot whenever he wants something, trying to steer us in one direction or another. Once he's decided it's dinner time he'll meow endlessly and charge our legs any time we stand up. We try not to give in to any of this. We don't want him to learn that bad behavior gets results. The biggest problem, though, is that he wakes us up every single morning. For a while it was fairly reasonable. He'd start in just a little while before my alarm, I'd lock him out of the room, and then when my alarm went off I'd get up and feed him.
We're always careful not to just give in to his whims. We know that consistency is vital, and we've always heard that after enough time cats with learn when they're fighting a losing battle.
Not Marlon. He now wakes me up sometimes two hours before my alarm (like 5am), and he's developed all sorts of tricks to get my attention. Instead of just whining or jumping on the bed, he starts knocking things of the dresser. Alarm clocks, my phone, glasses of water. Still, we're firm with him. If we can't ignore him one of us we'll lock him in another room and get back in bed until the alarm goes off. It hasn't discouraged him in the least. It's been over a year.
And unfortunately, I have a really hard time going to sleep. So right now it's 6am and I don't think I'll get any more rest tonight. We don't know what to do. We can't free-feed, because our other cat will gorge. And we've tried to avoid squirt guns, because we don't like the idea of negative reinforcement. This cat just doesn't seem capable or learning, though. The other has picked up on the rules without a problem, but not Marlon.
I'm constantly tired at work because I'm averaging at least an hour of sleep less than I need. We really don't know what to do. Aside from the waking us up issue, there are other behavior problems as well, and Marlon just doesn't seem to learn.
Any ideas?
He's constantly underfoot whenever he wants something, trying to steer us in one direction or another. Once he's decided it's dinner time he'll meow endlessly and charge our legs any time we stand up. We try not to give in to any of this. We don't want him to learn that bad behavior gets results. The biggest problem, though, is that he wakes us up every single morning. For a while it was fairly reasonable. He'd start in just a little while before my alarm, I'd lock him out of the room, and then when my alarm went off I'd get up and feed him.
We're always careful not to just give in to his whims. We know that consistency is vital, and we've always heard that after enough time cats with learn when they're fighting a losing battle.
Not Marlon. He now wakes me up sometimes two hours before my alarm (like 5am), and he's developed all sorts of tricks to get my attention. Instead of just whining or jumping on the bed, he starts knocking things of the dresser. Alarm clocks, my phone, glasses of water. Still, we're firm with him. If we can't ignore him one of us we'll lock him in another room and get back in bed until the alarm goes off. It hasn't discouraged him in the least. It's been over a year.
And unfortunately, I have a really hard time going to sleep. So right now it's 6am and I don't think I'll get any more rest tonight. We don't know what to do. We can't free-feed, because our other cat will gorge. And we've tried to avoid squirt guns, because we don't like the idea of negative reinforcement. This cat just doesn't seem capable or learning, though. The other has picked up on the rules without a problem, but not Marlon.
I'm constantly tired at work because I'm averaging at least an hour of sleep less than I need. We really don't know what to do. Aside from the waking us up issue, there are other behavior problems as well, and Marlon just doesn't seem to learn.
Any ideas?