Newbie here and Cat Problem

Hi Everyone,
I am new here and just wanted to introduce my cat and get a little help with something he has been doing lately.

My hubby and I adopted Toby on July 24, 2004 and he was about 4 months old then. Now, he is about a year and a half. He is part Russian Blue and (we think) Tabby. He has pretty gray hair with the silver tips, muave foot pad and big green eyes but he has some slight stripes, which might be tabby. He is very loyal to us and is very verbal. Whenever we say his name and look at him, he will meow back at us and sometimes does, what I like to call, the machine gun meow. Also, he will make a sort of purring meow (more in the throat) as he enters the room, almost to let us know that he is here. He likes to play hide and seek with us and also can play fetch with a ball, which is fun. Sometimes we think he is a dog stuck in a cat's body.

He has been such a great kitten, oh sure, he had his crazy moments when he was about 6 months and sometimes still gets quite crazy, running around and meowing but he is fun and has always been well behaved.

Though, now we are having a small problem with him and was wondering if anyone could give any advice. He used to be really good about sleeping on the bed with us but for the past month he has not been. But instead in the middle of the night, not certain the times but can be anywhere from 11PM-3AM, he will come in and start meowing at us, jumps up on the bed, continues to meow at us and then jumps on the headboard to try to get our attention and to wake us up. We try to say "Toby, go to bed" and try to pet him and get him to lay down by us but he is not interested in that, seems like he wants to play. So we have to end up locking the bedroom door. And then sometimes he will paw at the bedroom door a bit and meow. If we don't lock him out and just ignore him then he might go away for a little bit but then comes right back later and just wakes us up all over again. And it is not because he is hungry, he usually has a whole bowl of dry food leftover from dinner.

Does anyone have experience with this and how to get him to stop trying to wake us up in the middle of the night? It gets really hard to get a good night's sleep. Any advice would be much appreciated. We would prefer to not have to lock the bedroom door as soon as we go to bed, we would like him to come sleep with us on the bed but he just has not been doing that lately. My hubby sometimes finds him on the couch in our living room.

Here are some pics of Toby:

http://photobucket.com/albums/a348/...jc/th_Toby1.jpg

http://photobucket.com/albums/a348/...jc/th_Toby2.jpg

This gives some idea of what he looks like.

Hi, has he been neutered? If not, get it done, or he'll be looking for 'action' (a girl kitty) and making noise at night and then spraying urine all over if you don't. Otherwise, maybe he's just a goof.

Oooh poor you. I have a Russian Blue and trust me this is not unusual behaviour for them - or any cat, I should say.

Russians have a long kittenhood, and at about a year and a half your baby is still, well, a baby. They are a highly active breed of cat, very agile, very vocal, and very much into being with their owners. I'm not sure why this behaviour has just started now (unless he has not been spayed - which could explain a lot) but cats are nocturnal animals and that is his natural playtime. And being a sociable baby he wants you to play with him!

You need to get him some really good interactive toys and wear him out before bed, then give him a quick treat. In doing this consistently, every night, you will be `reprogramming' his inner clock to work to your hours, not his. Da bird and the Cat Dancer are excellent toys - as is the universal cat favourite, the trusty laser-light pen. They could chase the dot around for hours and they just LOVE it!

Sashka was a complete mental case as a kitten and still gets up to mischief all the time, but thankfully using the above techniques I was able to train her not to be crazy during the night. She still will, occasionally, pounce on Sunday on the bed and set off a midnight wrestle and Indi 500 around the bedroom, but it settles down quickly.

Good luck!

Do you check to make sure he has a clean dish of water too ? I have a cat who wakes me up in the middle of the night crying ONLY if he is out of water. Now with having six cats for the time being I have starting using the automatic waterers and that has taken care of the problem, but that is just one suggestion.

Hi everyone,
Thanks for all of your replies, I did not get a chance to check this site until now. Well, yes, he has been neutered. And about the water bowl, we have 2 out for him, one in our bathroom and the other by his food bowl.

And I am glad that I am not the only one that has to suffer with crazy kittens. Now, I know cats are nocturnal animals that is one reason why we got a bird feeder out on our deck, hoping to entertain him during the day while we are gone at work. I think it worked for awhile but now I don't think the birds are that entertaining to him, he just sleeps so much during the day now.

We have a cat dancer and I tried playing that with him the other night, he does not chase it around half as much as he used since he is getting older and he seems to get bored/tired of it quickly so it is hard to keep him going after it. I try to make it interesting but sometimes he'll just lay down and look at it.

We tried playing with him last night, but still in the middle of the night he woke us up with his meowing and jumping up on our headboard and we had to lock him out. Later, I heard his pawing and meowing at our bedroom door, which is sad to hear but we need our sleep.

Well, we will keep trying to play with him about an hour before bedtime, maybe we will try to get some new toys. We even tried playing ball with him in our hallway (kind of like monkey in the middle) and he just laid in the middle of the hallway and watched the ball roll/bounce over and by him and sometimes made an attempt to swat at it. He used to love doing that.
I think we will miss some aspects of those kitten days, just so much fun to play with him but not the sleepless nights.

KitEKats4Eva, I understand about the Indi 500 around the room and up and over the couches, he does that and it is all too funny and then sometimes he'll add a yowl along the way, he definately has those crazy kitten moments, which are fun. He especially does it as soon as we wake up and/or come home from work. It seems like he is excited that we are up and/or home. We just love him so much though and really glad we could get a Russian Blue, glad one was available at the adoption place.

Just wondering, does your cat like to cuddle and lay in your lap? Ours does not, the only time he sits in our lap is when we sit at the computer but he still loves being petted at certain times, usually as soon as we wake up or come home from work. Other times when he is laying down/trying to sleep he gets this angry look when we pet him and sometimes attempts to bite in which he gets reprimanded. Does yours do that? He seems so independent but he definately likes to be in the same room as us or at least in the middle, if my hubby and I are in seperate rooms.
Also, just wondering, does she like playing with things and then holding it with her front paws and then using her back legs to paw at it, the hind legs look like a rabbit then? Does that make sense? He loves to do that, just so cute to watch.

I would invest in Da Bird for him. Cats do not get tired of playing with that toy-

Oh and I just saw pics of your Russian Blue and she definately looks so much like our kitten. She is cute, love the one in the box. I wish we had taken more pics of Toby when he was 4-5 months old, those days fly by so quickly. We look back at the pics and think of how tiny he was then and how suddenly he grew up.
And how does your Russian Blue deal with the other pets in the household? One day we would like to get a puppy but don't know how he would deal with it. One reason we got him was because he could handle being by himself and I think they said he did not like being with a whole bunch of other cats, which the foster parent had. He had been found, I think, by himself outside as a kitten, must have been abandoned or lost. Poor thing.

Ok, I will try that. I had not heard of it until now. Will seek it out when we buy his cat food.

KitEKats4Eva,
Oh and I saw her pet peeve of being held, that is so much like Toby. When I try to hold him and have him lay on my stomach or lie on my lap, he will start to squirm a lot, then makes an angry meow and if I keep holding him he will attempt to bite, not hard but will try. I wish he would not mind being held or cuddling, oh well.