Wailing Cat -HELP!

[meowmars007]

I am not use to asking for pet advice, but rather giving it.

I have a 12/13 year old cat. He lives with other cats and there are no problems among them. He is -of course- neutered and has been since kittenhood. He has always been a quiet, well-behaved cat aside from a few spraying incidents with another cat he disliked and was beating up (she was rehomed as she hated other cats and she was spraying as well) and then again when a child he hated was being baby-sat in the house. Banned the child, solved the problem. 

Recently he started wailing by the hallway door that connects my house to the hallway that has stairs leading to another house. where his grandparents live. He sits there are claws at the door and wails a loud long mournful raspy howl. Over and over. And over. He wants to go upstairs to see his grandparents who let him visit sometimes because he is so desperate to be up there. However, he cannot be there unsupervised, as the two dogs get jealous and food protective and have snapped at him many times. He also tires of being up there eventually and wails to come back down. I can deal with it during the day, but he does it ALL hours and last night he started at about 1 am or 2 am and wailed until maybe 6 am? I am jumping out of bed to spray him with the squirter every few minutes. He will stop and run away when sprayed....sulk around, and then return to wail more. i haven't slept more than a few hours in days and I am exhausted at work. Year ago I tried Feliway when he was behavioral spraying and he actually sprayed the device. It was useless. Pheremone collars do not work either.

I have a very small house and know from experience that the rooms I used as foster rooms in the past have very thin walls, so putting him in one would be useless. The basement is too cold and murky and dirty.

I have even contemplated staying overnight in a hotel in a mid-moment of insanity at 4 am.

The cat has hundreds of toys, cat friends he gets along with, room to roam, windows, 3 cat trees, and high quality food.

He just had a dental to remove a cracked tooth  and no wailing over that....He also had a senior blood panel months ago. 

It's not health.

I considered an ssst-cat device, but I have other cats that walk past that door, and he would just wail as close as he could get to it. I considered ultra-sonic devices, but that requires pressing the button each time. I am now considering vibrating collars or citronella to train him.

My boyfriend is threatening to move out and I haven't had a normal nights sleep in forever. I lay in bed waiting for him to meow when it's silent and it's giving me anxiety. I would rather not drug him as he is older...

HELP?

 

[mservant]

Anything going on on the other side of the door he might be being bothered by or interested in? Something with the grandparents, or with their dogs?  Different smells or sounds there?

I am not a fan of methods like spray bottle where cat can experience actions as punishment or aggression, but if there was some way to try and get him to see the area as less appealing / interesting like use of citrus scent maybe that would work?  

Sometimes older cats can start to get more vocal at night (my 2 certainly did) and sometimes need reassurance or a little prompting to redirect to where people are.  I used to have to go answer my cats and show them which room I was in and take them there at night sometimes - they'd go back through to the sitting room after I went to bed, forget I was there or how to get there for some reason and then I'd have to get up and show them.  Then it would be fine.  They did this when  their sight was going but some do this because they are starting to have memory difficulties too.

I hope you can find a way to settle your cat, I remember how hard it can be to cope with the regular disturbance.

 

[kitty queen]

I'm truly a fan of a set or se!mi set schedule for cats. It keeps the cat sane and the humans too.
So: 8-9am wake up and breakfast with play before and a bit after. She usually is up for a while watching birds outside and then sleeps most of mid day and afternoon.

Evening 6-9pm. Play like crazy. Wear the cat out. At least 30min solid play time. My cat is still young so 3 hours of play isn't unheard of for her. Then dinner. The cat then grooms itself and sleeps pretty solid through the night. If the cat is bored it might wail more. Having toys doesn't necessarily mean the cat is entertained. Try interactive toys like DA bird.

 

[meowmars007]

I think he just really wants to go upstairs to see his grandparents. But he then wants to come back after a few hours and will cry up there to come back down. They take him usually at least once a day, but he needs supervision around the 2 dogs.

He is the only cat I ever have to use the spray bottle on- the other cats know the sight of it and I only need to shake it, even with my one that likes to steal food out of my hand. But the spray bottle only deters him briefly and I do need to spray him.

I have sprayed the floors with citrus cleaner in summer to get rid of ants and no cats were deterred. If I were to block the door, the would cry somewhere else. He already learned that I can't spray him from the bed if he sits at the end of the hall instead of right at the hall door.

 

[meowmars007]

My cats demand food around 9 am and then again at 6:30-ish when I get home from work so they have a schedule. After they eat, they lounge around all day and nap, then nap more, and then more napping. In between they look out the window and the younger ones, under 6 sometimes play with toys.

He has zero interest in playing besides the occasional time with brand new cat-nip toys and a bat to two at the laser toy. I have every type of toy known to man, and some that aren't. No interest. He doesn't like to play, he likes to sit like a bump on a log most of the time. And wail.  He wails at 6 am, he is wailing now at 2 pm on a Saturday as I get home from work, and he will wail tonight again like he did last night. 

I bought one of those stupid purple pheromone collars that didn't work on my shy cat and nothing. He has had it on since yesterday night.

I may look into oils but they can be $30-$60 for a tiny vial and did not work in the past on other cats. Drugs are a last resort. 

 

[mservant]

You say you think it is because he wants to go upstairs, and he gets to go up once a day.  Suggest you try a period of not letting him up and see if this settles him.  Can be a bit like indoor / outdoor cats that will scratch and wail to get in and out and sometimes the only way to reduce the behaviour is to remove the choise?   If he thinks the other property is his territory too he will want to get to it to see what is going on.