carrying a toy mouse and YEOWLING

Chloe carries a toy mouse around in her mouth like she would a kitten. She does this usually in the middle of the night. She starts a very loud YYEEEOWW over and over. She is Siamese, 13 and spayed.
Why does she do this?

I have to agree with Vikki - a vet exam is in order here and should be faithfully done every 3 months for geriatric (over 10 years old) cats. Anytime you observe a change in behavior, especially in an older cat, the vet should see them for a complete check up including both blood and urine labs.

If the vet says everything is OK, it may just be that she is disoriented in the middle of the night, and is looking for you. As our kitties age, their hearing and eyesight begin to decline, and in fact, they can even suffer from a form of age-related dementia much like alzhimer's. The mouse may be her "security blanket" so she carts it around with her.

I once had an elderly Siamese, "Whitney" who would repeatedly take one of my German Shepherd's puppies and cart it around everywhere until "Greta", my GS, barked at her sharply for it. I think Whitney just liked having that pup around, she never harmed it in any way, she just liked to cart it around, wash it and have epic conversations with it. *grin* She was so full of personality, like most Siamese can be!

Do check with the vet and see if he thinks she needs to be seen, though.

Best of luck and please let us know how it goes,

Gaye

I have three cats who exhibit this behavior. One carries anything and meows with it in her mouth. Then she drops it in her bowl of water.

I have a 13yr. old with arthritis who walks around the house meowing loundly from room to room and I answer him and he's happy. I think he does it for attention.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your cat. I think it's just having some fun.

Chloe has done this all of her life. She has several toys but it seems to be the mouse that works best. Of course we have had several mice over the years and she readily accepts a new one when the old wears out. She is very talkative as most Siamese are and this YEOWing sound is gutteral and LOUD. I never suspected anything to be wrong with her, just strange. BTW, she just had a check up and all is well with the old girl...lots of spunk still left in her.

It is good to know that Chloe is OK as far as the vet is concerned! Some kitties just dislike being alone - maybe Mouse is your girl's way of making sure she has company. *smile*

By the way, I have a little Seal Point girl, also named Chloe. She is now going on 17 years old and was recently diagnosed with feline diabetes. Chloe originally belonged to a childhood friend of mine who now works for a US Gov't law enforcement agency ... Laura was transferred to another country to work for an extended period of time, and since I have known Chloe since Laura and I picked her up from the breeder so many years ago, I agreed to take her into my home. She's been living here with me now for about 2 years, and has adapted quite well although it did take a while. At first, it was really heartbreaking, as she roamed the house at all hours of the day and night just yeowling her head off - I suspect Chloe was calling her "Momma Laura", and was searching for her. She stopped looking after a while - which was almost even more sad than watching her search. Recently, she began this behavior again. I observed her for a couple of days until I realized that she wasn't searching for Laura, she was trying to tell me she was sick in the only way she knew how. When I took her to the vet, we discovered the diabetes, which I am told, she probably has had for some time, only the symptoms were either missed, or chalked up to some other reasonable explanation. Now that she is being treated, she no longer displays the excessive vocalization behavior and seems to be doing as well as can be expected for now.

This is why I cannot stress the importance of regular vet visits (every 3 months faithfully!!) for older kitties enough. They mask the symptoms of things so well that you can easily miss them and if you do see them, you may think it is normal when in fact, it isn't normal at all.

Of course, you've had your girl checked recently, and I am certain the vet took blood and urine for analysis, so you are confident that everything is good. Sometimes, as I said earlier, kitties just get lonely. Maybe try leaving a radio or the TV on in a low volume overnight or when you are away from home to keep her company?

Continued best of luck,

Gaye

My Persian, Sampson, will cry when he's alone. Often when he's playing with the other cats, he'll run upstairs into the loft and just cry and cry. It's almost like he's saying "Hey guys where are you?"

Also if he thinks he's alone he'll cry but when you call his name he comes running and stops yowling.

My two girls that will carry soft balls and cry like that(well more of a meowing call not yeowling).One of them I think does it because she wants attention. I call her when she starts crying and she will drop the ball and come running in the bedroom, up on the bed looking for attention. This amazes me since she is a very skittish cat and doesn't like strangers or men very much. but she will let my S/O pick her up and pet her, just no other men.
The other one. Well, I am not sure why she crys like that. We tell her to go get her babies when she crys like that and she runs away to get a ball. It is strange, cause she hordes them in the basement. I don't understand the reason behind this. But the girls were ferals that I took inside and now they are coming out with interesting "quirks" that makes them more interesting everyday. Just a little FYI: my cats do the crying thing and they have been checked by a vet and were healthy and happy(and a little pudgy! LOL!).
I'd listen to the others though and get your kitty checked if this is a new behavior. If not, try calling your kitty and see what happens.
Maybe she just wants attention.Or maye she wants you to play with her.

Hi keysgirl

Perhaps you can spend some time with Chloe prior to bed with this toy. Give her about 20 minutes of playtime. Fasten a string to this mouse and pull it around the house, pop it up and down in front of her just let her have a good ol time with it. I have one kitty that does this crying while she is carrying around whatever she wants to play with. Usually, it's an empty film cannister that she wants me to throw and she will bring back to me. Yep, she fetches. I found that if I give her one-on-one playtime daily for 20 minutes, after 3 days of this she now lets us sleep in peace. Good luck!

Hi, Keysgirl:

It's a really odd sound, right? Like it's coming right from her belly?

Our Bugs is an Abyssinian and he does this all the time when he has his soft pom pom in his mouth... usually standing hunched over it with the ball pressed to the ground, like he would if he were pinning a mouse and preparing to give it the "death" bite. It is, in fact, an instinctual hunting thing... and although any kind of cat can do it, it seems to be more prevalent in Oriental breeds (like Abys and Siamese) where cats are more naturally vocal.

I encountered this decades ago with my first Siamese... we all though she's eaten something bad and was in terrible pain, so we rushed her to the vet... the vet told us that in some feral cats it's a way of warning other cats off their kill, and it does seem to be a sort of "possession" thing with Bugs, a way of saying, "it's mine!"

Our Sophie does that.
It's like when they bring home a dead mouse and expect you
to praise them for it! LOL
She's just proud of her "captor" whatever it may be, and she's looking for you to tell her what a great kitty she is. ;-)