Young Cat Is Super Hyperactive And Acts Out

[Littleroldlucyloo]

I really need some advice on my 10 month old flame point siamese. He’s driving us up a wall. We live in a small effiency apartment (so no doors except the bathroom and the front door) with two cats, the siamese male and a tortie female who’s about a year and a half. We specifically adopted two kittens in our previous apartment in the hopes that they could keep each other company when my boyfriend and I were away at work or school.
With that background information in mind, our problem is this: Monty, our siamese has so much energy, to the point where if we don’t play with him enough(usually 4-5 hours, spread out) for 1 day, he retaliates. He’ll chew on electrical wires right in front of us in a ploy to make us get out of bed, he whines and cries for attention, he tackles our other cat until she growls at him and hides, when we try and lock him in the bathroom for the night, he chews the carpet to shreds, and worst of all, he pees on the bed. We’ve taken him to the vet and he has no problems, and the peeing happens in very particular situations: when my boyfriend is out of town. I work most of the day, so when he is out of town, there’s simply no way for Monty to get his usual 4 hours of play time.
We are really at our wits end with his behavior, and we’ve tried everything we can think of. He even has a million toys, but he refuses play with any of them independently. The only activities he enjoys are going on walks (which we do daily, except when it rains, and it’s been raining a lot lately) and playing with the dangly pole toys with feathers on the end of the string.
Does anyone have any advice on how we could calm him down, at least at night, and stop the bad chewing and pee behavior?

 

[KarenKat]

Hi and welcome to The Cat Site! I hear Siamese cats can be a handful, and it sounds like Monty is living up to the reputation. I understand your space is limited, but what kind of vertical space do the cats have? Can you add some cat trees or some shelves for them to climb? That might help get out some boredom.

 

[Kieka]

Cat trees and verticle spaces could definitely help. Give him more space and territory can help his security levels. I'd look into wrappings for your electrical cords so he can chew without damaging the wires. When we had indoor rabbits cheap PVC pipe was extremely durable for that purpose.

There is the chance that he is acting out for attention. When he has antics you should try doing a hard no and ignore him. If needed move him away from whatever he is messing with but do so in a completely non-attentive manner. Pick him up and place him elsewhere as if he was just a piece of furniture, no petting, don't talk to him, nothing, just move him away impassively. Give it about two weeks of that kind of response, consistently for those two weeks from everyone, and he should respond if he is acting out for attention.

Another direction is to keep wand toys and toss toys everywhere. The second he starts to get antsy or show signs he will act out just toss a toy or wave a wand around. Enough to distract and redirect him.

A final thought would be to check with your vet about antianxiety options. The peeing especially indicates he is insecure in his place and anxious. Coupled with the going after your other cat it could indicate anxiety issues instead of hyperactivity. I know many of our members have had success with anxiety medications to just take the edge off a nervous cat. But I would say to try the aforementioned methods first.

 

[Littleroldlucyloo]

Hello, thank you SO much for the reponses. We do have one cat tree, so we could perhaps get some shelves for him, though he's surprisingly not too much of a climber. In regards to the wires, we actually do have ours covered as well as put behind furniture and whatnot so he can't get to them, but he goes for the base of the wires at the wall outlet, the one place we can't cover. And again, it's not a regular thing, he does it very specifically in front of us–usually post-whining–to get attention. So we'll probably try out the ignoring thing/tossing toys and see how that goes.
We hadn't really considered it being anxiety since the behavior usually occurs around the same time, starting at about 8 at night and depending on his level of energy carrying on through the whole night. But in the case that it is, do you think those calming sprays would help? Or is there any natural supplement that people recommend? I would rather leave any vet prescribed medications as a last resort, as I know they can be pretty expensive...
I've also tried giving him benedryll to help him sleep at night, but with mixed success. Even disregarding how difficult it was to give to him, it only worked and made him sleepy the first night I tried it, and the second night he was back to his wily ways with little change.

 

[Kieka]

If he is only doing it at night, a routine might help. It's another of those two to three weeks of doing it every day type of things for effect. You'd have to do it everyday at the same time regardless of the day of the week.

It would be establishing an evening routine so he knows expectations and not varying from it for any reason during the establishing time. Once he is into it you can have minor variations but it's better to stick with it. For my guys, I play with them, I feed them, then I watch an hour of TV and get ready for bed. They know the bedtime routine well enough that most of the time they are pacing the hallway while I finish in the bathroom. Once I am in bed I don't play with them or allow any rough housing in bed. We lay down and they are usually passed out fairly quickly. But I have been working on this routine since mine were first with us.

Starting a new routine is just dedication and commitment. You have to stick with it until your cat catches on. My guys are so into the routine that when I do stay up later or am out they will go to sleep without me and do the pacing while I am in the bathroom before falling back asleep.

 

[KarenKat]

Our 7-year Gohan will bite wires for attention: it usually means "feed me" or "I'm bored". It's always for attention, and only when we are in the room watching. A good "hiss" or "NO" usually at least makes him pause. If he does it at night, sometimes I pick him up and put him on his bed, and it has a 70% chance of getting him to settle down a bit. No pets are interaction, just moving him neutrally. But he's also an adult cat, and doesn't have Siamese kitten energy.

 

[Littleroldlucyloo]

Yes KarenKat, that’s EXACTLY what he does. Usually the bad behavior stems from wanting playtime/to go outside/food. And of course we fear ignoring him will lead to him grtting hurt. We will definitely try the loud voice thing and neutrally moving him from the area. I think part of our problem is we feel like we already play and interact with him SO MUCH. It’s a huge chunk of our day dedicated to him. Like, we were prepared for showering our cats with attention as most kittens need, but he just goes way beyond what seems like the norm.

To Kieka, yes, we could probably do with a new routine. Our current routine is frequently interrupted, especially at night, because I get home at inconsistent times most night. We just don’t reallt know how to go about it or how to establish a reasonable limit to the amount of playtime he gets.

 

[Hellenww]

At 10 months Monty is a "teenager" with all that entails. Don't worry it doesn't last forever only feels like it. Kieka is right, get him on a routine. Teach "fetch" kept my sanity with my hyper Yoshi. The trick with him was the wildly shake the mouski until Yoshi was shaking a little and then throw it. I had to not watch him bring it back. It seemed like he thought if I could see it I could reach it to throw again. He'd play for hours with a few string thing sessions in the middle until he was 8 yrs. Now at 11 he'll only play for 30 min at a time.

You said it starts about 8pm. Do you know if there are strays he can see through a window at night that could exciting him.

Our Yoshi also was more activated after a meal instead of ready to sleep. So it was heavy play, food, heavy play, then sleep.

Nice Cat Age Chart: How to Calculate Cat Years to Human Years

 

[Kieka]

Yes KarenKat, that’s EXACTLY what he does. Usually the bad behavior stems from wanting playtime/to go outside/food. And of course we fear ignoring him will lead to him grtting hurt. We will definitely try the loud voice thing and neutrally moving him from the area. I think part of our problem is we feel like we already play and interact with him SO MUCH. It’s a huge chunk of our day dedicated to him. Like, we were prepared for showering our cats with attention as most kittens need, but he just goes way beyond what seems like the norm.

To Kieka, yes, we could probably do with a new routine. Our current routine is frequently interrupted, especially at night, because I get home at inconsistent times most night. We just don’t reallt know how to go about it or how to establish a reasonable limit to the amount of playtime he gets.

When my boy was that age I did an hour of dedicated play before work and right when I got home. Then an on demand play until the predinner 15 minutes just to get him moving fast. When Link was a kitten hearing, "you're cat needs you" meant he was getting rambunctious and needed playtime. It did get better to a degree once he was over a year old, more so now that he is four. But I have two Siamese types so they run each other every morning now. Catnip seems to work well with Link, he gets the inital spaz moment but after it wears off some he mellows. Valerian root toys are another one that is more mellowing but harder to find.

 

[Pjg8r]

You could try something like bitter apple to make the covers on the cords taste awful.

 

[Littleroldlucyloo]

You could try something like bitter apple to make the covers on the cords taste awful.

We have that stuff, and he honestly does not care. I’ve found that lime juice and hot sauce work better, but at the cost of leaving everything smelling funny. We usually do that

Hellenww and Kieka we are going to take you guy’s advice and really get him on a strict play/food schedule. He is very similar to your cat, hellenww in that after he ears he usually has another. Energy spurt. God, he is such a teenager in every way. I realize logically that he’ll surely grow out of it but these last few months have felt like an eternity.

We’ll also look into some valerian root stuff, I’ve never heard of it before! Thanks a lot!

 

[aliceneko]

We reckon that Toffee and Fudge have some Siamese heritage, but because they are rescues it's hard to tell, however many people whom we've spoken to about the subject matter have said that it's likely they could have some Siamese ancestry (including my mother's friend who is a life-long Siamese owner). Monty's behaviour reminds me very much of Toffee's. Toffee is terrible with chargers and whenever there's a charger near him, he'll immediately run and grab/chew it. We normally baff him gently on the paws and tell him firmly not to chew, and he normally stops when he hears our firm voices. Sometimes he doesn't stop at that and I often just pick him up and carry him away from the charger and give him another toy to occupy himself with (my boys don't normally like being picked up but in situations like this Toffee is more tolerant with being carried). Can Monty go outside yet? Toffee likes the outdoors so if he's in an episode where he's particularly letting off some steam, we sometimes let him outdoors where he has more space to run.
I agree that the schedules are a good idea. Toffee and Fudge have schedules and they're used to them and now expect their food etc at their schedule times. Have you considered Feliway or a similar calming device for cats?

 

[Littleroldlucyloo]

aliceneko Yes, he does go outside, but since we live in an apartment complex fairly close to a road, we take him out on a leash usually for about thirty minutes before his last meal and last hour of playtime. It is his FAVORITE thing, but we don't really want him to be an outdoor cat and we are pretty concerned about the dangers of cars and other tenants who have dogs and such. I've considered training him to stay in the courtyard area on his own unsupervised, but I don't know where to begin with that.

As far as feliway, I WAS considering feliway, but I read so many bad reviews on amazon about them being a fire hazard... I also recently learned of the calming collar, which could be great for Monty if it actually works, since he already wears a collar during the day. Today I bought some "calming treats" from petsmart, so we're going to try those next time he has a particularly crazy day.

Also, just so you know I'm not ignoring the earlier part of your message, Monty isn't quuuite like Toffee, as he doesn't chew unless he wants something (i.e. attention). But we'll definitely try out the picking up and moving him method, for sure.

 

[Hellenww]

I've considered training him to stay in the courtyard area on his own unsupervised, but I don't know where to begin with that.

Since you live near a busy road and have dogs close by I wouldn't let him out unharnessed. Even the smartest cat doesn't have the reasoning of a human. The instinct to hunt or run from a dog could drive him right into that road.

 

[KarenKat]

Agreed. We were letting Gohan and Trin have unsupervised visits to our quiet, fenced in backyard. We stopped that when Gohan figured out how to jump on the fence. Once he starts getting comfortable, he will want to explore more territory and leave the safety of the courtyard.

 

[5starcathotel]

Hehe, Monty sounds so much like my 2yo girl, Blue, also with some Siamese / Tonkinese heritage. Blue likes to "play" with cables, chew on couches (she has chewed holes in the blankets I use to protect them!), and pull the TV mount releases! Honestly, without 3 other cats in the house for her to torture...oops....I mean "play with".....I don't know what I would have done for the last 2 years!

First advice - cat TV. Make sure Monty has easy access to every window possible. And if you can, give him a 'catio' space. A place he can be outside, but still securely contained and safe.

Second - actual TV. I'm not kidding....if it is the right channel, and the right program, my Blue will watch.

Finally, it can get better. These cats are very intelligent, and observant. If there is a time of day for eating, and a time for playing, and a time for sleeping, they will learn and adapt.

Edit: also, what kind of toys? Usually I hate laser pointers for cats...but for a few...they are a life saver!!!