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- Apr 23, 2014
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I'm about at my wit's end with this boy, so I lay my problems before you other cat-lovers, in hopes that someone has a suggestion I haven't tried.
Wyatt is a very smart, very willful, and rather nervous cat, with a very specific problem: he wants to get into the bedroom, and nothing on God's green earth can stop him. This issue has persisted throughout the three years we've owned him, from the first day he tried digging his way under the bedroom door-- through the carpet. He likes our roommate, who sleeps in the living room and is often available to give him pettings, and seems happy and secure in the apartment even when we're out of the house, but when my husband and I are in the bedroom, trying to sleep, he totally loses his marbles. He claws at the carpet at the base of the door, trying to get in, and if he's very upset (perhaps someone knocked on the neighbor's door and startled him) he tries to use his head as a battering ram. As you can imagine, having a cat that tears up several-inch chunks of carpet in our rental homes while we're sleeping is kind of problematic.
So far, we've tried claw caps (which still have enough grip to them for grabbing carpet), placing sticky tape and spiky X-Mats in his preferred scratching spot (he scratches around them), spraying chemical cat repellent along the base of the door (no effect), and cat calming pheremones (no effect on the tunneling attempts). The most effective remedy so far has been the Ssscat device (basically, a motion-activated can of compressed air, which startles cats away from forbidden areas), but between Wyatt and our other cat, it runs out of charges fairly quickly, and sometimes we can't afford to replace them immediately. As well, Wyatt is liable to ignore the sprayer when he's in a truly desperate-to-enter mood. Right now, we're putting him in a crate at night while we wait for more cans of Ssscat to ship.
For a wide variety of reasons, both health and behavior related, giving him free access to the bedroom is out of the question.
So, uh... has anyone else experienced this kind of issue? Do you have any suggestions? Anything you can offer is greatly appreciated.
Wyatt is a very smart, very willful, and rather nervous cat, with a very specific problem: he wants to get into the bedroom, and nothing on God's green earth can stop him. This issue has persisted throughout the three years we've owned him, from the first day he tried digging his way under the bedroom door-- through the carpet. He likes our roommate, who sleeps in the living room and is often available to give him pettings, and seems happy and secure in the apartment even when we're out of the house, but when my husband and I are in the bedroom, trying to sleep, he totally loses his marbles. He claws at the carpet at the base of the door, trying to get in, and if he's very upset (perhaps someone knocked on the neighbor's door and startled him) he tries to use his head as a battering ram. As you can imagine, having a cat that tears up several-inch chunks of carpet in our rental homes while we're sleeping is kind of problematic.
So far, we've tried claw caps (which still have enough grip to them for grabbing carpet), placing sticky tape and spiky X-Mats in his preferred scratching spot (he scratches around them), spraying chemical cat repellent along the base of the door (no effect), and cat calming pheremones (no effect on the tunneling attempts). The most effective remedy so far has been the Ssscat device (basically, a motion-activated can of compressed air, which startles cats away from forbidden areas), but between Wyatt and our other cat, it runs out of charges fairly quickly, and sometimes we can't afford to replace them immediately. As well, Wyatt is liable to ignore the sprayer when he's in a truly desperate-to-enter mood. Right now, we're putting him in a crate at night while we wait for more cans of Ssscat to ship.
For a wide variety of reasons, both health and behavior related, giving him free access to the bedroom is out of the question.
So, uh... has anyone else experienced this kind of issue? Do you have any suggestions? Anything you can offer is greatly appreciated.