Hi everyone,
I am in desperate need of some advice. We are having some major behavioral problems with our now 6-month-old Russian Blue, Eddie. We got him back in April when he was 9 weeks old and we have 3 other cats and 2 dogs. Both my husband and I are HUGE animal lovers and we both have had cats and dogs our entire lives, so it's not like we're new at this. The problem is that Eddie is totally out of control, and I mean totally. He is destroying EVERYTHING and driving our other 3 cats insane.
Here are some of the things that he has done: He has destroyed several window blinds, spilled water all over our brand new hardwood floors so many times that the floor started to lift up and we had to have someone come out and replace that part of the floor, so we finally had to move the water dish into our entry way where the floor is tile, which totally confused our other cats. He climbs behind our living room entertainment center and chews on and unplugs the speaker wires to our home theater system and unplugs things. The other day, he chewed on the cord to our brand new vacuum cleaner, so my husband had to replace the cord. (I caught him chewing on it, but it was too late.) He runs through the house so fast that he knocks things over, trips us, and is VERY rough with our 3 other cats. The other cats really try to get away from him and give him very clear signals to leave them alone, but he just keeps pouncing right on top of them and biting their necks as if he's trying to pin them down. He has ruined the carpets in our 2 bedrooms, so we are having those replaced next week. He climbs the walls and leaves claw marks in the paint and hangs from the curtains and screens in the windows.
I just don't know what to do. We have tried using a squirt bottle with water whenever he starts getting out of control, but it just doesn't even seem to phase him. We also tried saying NO very firmly, but he just doesn't seem to understand that none of this is acceptable behavior. We can't even stop him from jumping up on the kitchen counters and getting on top of the cabinets. We wake up in the morning with the house looking like a tornado hit it. Our other 3 cats sleep in the bed with us and we hear him all night running through the house and knocking things over. Just yesterday, we brought in a 50-pound bag of dog food that we had just bought and brought it inside. We went back outside for not even 5 minutes and when we came back in, Eddie had torn the bag open and the dog food was all over the floor.
Both my husband and I love him very, very much, but we are just at our wits end with him. He is destroying everything in our house and we can't even trust him when we're not home. He has an appointment to be neutered on September 1st. We are HOPING that will help calm him down, but I don't know what we'll do if it doesn't. Today was the very first time both my husband and I brought up rehoming him, but neither one of us want to have to do that because we still love him very much regardless of these problems, but he is just so out of control. I think we just brought it up out of sheer frustration and we didn't actually mean it. What makes it even worse is that I work from home full-time and he is greatly interfering with my work because I constantly have to get up from my desk to get him out of trouble, rescue the other cats from him, and keep an eye on him. We have plenty of cat toys, tunnels, and scratching posts, which the other cats love, but all that Eddie seems to want to do is run around and destroy things like a complete maniac. We hardly even get a chance to hold him and pet him because he almost never stays still. Like I said, I have had cats and kittens my entire life and NONE of them have ever been this out of control. Even our dogs as puppies were much calmer. I mean, we do agility training with our 1-year-old Golden Retriever and search & rescue, yet we can't even get our kitten to behave. Please help us. Is there anything we can do to calm him down? We're open to any and all suggestions!
I am in desperate need of some advice. We are having some major behavioral problems with our now 6-month-old Russian Blue, Eddie. We got him back in April when he was 9 weeks old and we have 3 other cats and 2 dogs. Both my husband and I are HUGE animal lovers and we both have had cats and dogs our entire lives, so it's not like we're new at this. The problem is that Eddie is totally out of control, and I mean totally. He is destroying EVERYTHING and driving our other 3 cats insane.
Here are some of the things that he has done: He has destroyed several window blinds, spilled water all over our brand new hardwood floors so many times that the floor started to lift up and we had to have someone come out and replace that part of the floor, so we finally had to move the water dish into our entry way where the floor is tile, which totally confused our other cats. He climbs behind our living room entertainment center and chews on and unplugs the speaker wires to our home theater system and unplugs things. The other day, he chewed on the cord to our brand new vacuum cleaner, so my husband had to replace the cord. (I caught him chewing on it, but it was too late.) He runs through the house so fast that he knocks things over, trips us, and is VERY rough with our 3 other cats. The other cats really try to get away from him and give him very clear signals to leave them alone, but he just keeps pouncing right on top of them and biting their necks as if he's trying to pin them down. He has ruined the carpets in our 2 bedrooms, so we are having those replaced next week. He climbs the walls and leaves claw marks in the paint and hangs from the curtains and screens in the windows.
I just don't know what to do. We have tried using a squirt bottle with water whenever he starts getting out of control, but it just doesn't even seem to phase him. We also tried saying NO very firmly, but he just doesn't seem to understand that none of this is acceptable behavior. We can't even stop him from jumping up on the kitchen counters and getting on top of the cabinets. We wake up in the morning with the house looking like a tornado hit it. Our other 3 cats sleep in the bed with us and we hear him all night running through the house and knocking things over. Just yesterday, we brought in a 50-pound bag of dog food that we had just bought and brought it inside. We went back outside for not even 5 minutes and when we came back in, Eddie had torn the bag open and the dog food was all over the floor.
Both my husband and I love him very, very much, but we are just at our wits end with him. He is destroying everything in our house and we can't even trust him when we're not home. He has an appointment to be neutered on September 1st. We are HOPING that will help calm him down, but I don't know what we'll do if it doesn't. Today was the very first time both my husband and I brought up rehoming him, but neither one of us want to have to do that because we still love him very much regardless of these problems, but he is just so out of control. I think we just brought it up out of sheer frustration and we didn't actually mean it. What makes it even worse is that I work from home full-time and he is greatly interfering with my work because I constantly have to get up from my desk to get him out of trouble, rescue the other cats from him, and keep an eye on him. We have plenty of cat toys, tunnels, and scratching posts, which the other cats love, but all that Eddie seems to want to do is run around and destroy things like a complete maniac. We hardly even get a chance to hold him and pet him because he almost never stays still. Like I said, I have had cats and kittens my entire life and NONE of them have ever been this out of control. Even our dogs as puppies were much calmer. I mean, we do agility training with our 1-year-old Golden Retriever and search & rescue, yet we can't even get our kitten to behave. Please help us. Is there anything we can do to calm him down? We're open to any and all suggestions!
