Behavior Issues

Greetings fellow cat lovers

Its been awhile since I have posted and for that I am sorry. I now have a serious issue I'd like to put out on the board for advice and comments from others.

My wife and I currently have 2 cats, both are female and around two years of age. They went to the annunal check up with the vet and both are very healthy and happy cats. Celeo was an abanded cat that we found in the hallway of our apartment building. She was already fixed and declawed and after many attemps at advertising he whereabout no owner steped forward to claim her. My wife and I adopted her and and with our other cat Amaretto we now had two. In the beginning Cleo weighed only 8 lbs and she developed a eating pattern in which she ate everything in site as fast as she possiblly could. Cleo quickly jumped to 13lbs and had to go on a deit. He food servings are now so small that I feel terrible. But on advice of her doctor she has come down to a healthy 11lbs. We feed her 3 times a day, once in the am before we go to work, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening.

The problem that has now developed has to do with the cat's feeding times. the feeding that use to be at 6:30am has now been moved back to as early as 5am. Each morning at around 4:30-5:00am both cats pester us until we feed them. Blelow are listed some of the behavoirs of each cat.

Amaretto- licks and eats our pillows until she is fed. If you shoo her off the bed she comes right back and starts eating our pillows again. She talks and talks starting at 4:30am until she is fed.

Cleo- She has started actually biting my wife all over until she gets up. These are real no playful bites. Any exposed skin gets nipped over and over again. Cleo will also lick both of our faces and my armpits (funny) as a way to get us out of bed. She has also started eating and tearing books to the point where our bedroom floor is covered in torn pages. I'm not sure why she does this or how to stop it.

Cleo will also run outside into the hallway all the way down to the fire door were I found her origionally each time we come home from work. There she waits until I come down and pick her up, at this time she begins purring and cuddling in my arms. Also at random points throughout the day Cleo will begin to cry iin the livingroom when no one is around. I'm not sure why she does this. could it have to do with her last family and the fact that she was abandoned? When I come into the room and pick her up she instantly purrs and starts cuddling.

We have had both cats for almost 2 years now and they get along great.

Thanks for listening





We have tried locking the cats out of the bedroom for the night but this only leads to clawing and crying at our door at 4:30am. Cleo always starts this crying and biting when her feeding time is near (throughout the day as well). I don't need a clock to tell time anymore. Each day at exactly 5am, 11:30am, and 6pm Cleo begins this cycle.

Don't get me wrong some of this is funny. Both cats tag teaming my wife and I so they can eat. Its the traits that Cleo has developed that worry me, also the morning feeding time at 4:30-5:00am is too early for us.

 

I have never come across this problem with my cats before. I suggest mabye having a room in your apartment that is strictly for the cats, or a room that you don't frequent much. Mabye like a laundry room, or an empty closet. Move all their stuff into that place and lock them in there during the night. In the morning let them out and immediatly feed them. Eventually they will probally get used to the new schedule. This is only a suggestion. I don't suppose that you could put your cat's food into a bowl and put something large in the middle of the bowl for her to eat around and that might slow her down. I use this technique with my piggy horses and it tends to slow them down and after awhile they will eat normally agian. :y_the_best:

 

We love napping with our cats. Unfortunately, Pumpkin will wake us up between 4-6AM no matter what we do. She usually licks us in the face to wake us up to feed her. If we push her off, she comes right back. Nothing we do deters her. Milo has gotten into a bad habit of waking us up too. He likes to stump back and forth on our bodies. It's quite annoying, but funny if you think about it. It's a very effective way to wake us up. And now Pumpkin does a combo of licks, claws, bites, and stumping. I wonder why they can't be like Monty or Rene who'll never wake us up anytime. Kyles101 does a lot of hissing to deter Pepe from doing unwanted behaviors. I wonder if that'll work?

 

I wonder...is there some type of automatic feeder that you just fill up with food that will feed at certain times? There must be...if there isnt, there should be. You should look into that and see if you can find anything, that way when feeding time comes, the cats wont come to you to feed them anymore.

If not, try cat repellants on objects in your room that the cat is scratching up and such. And maybe on the pillows....and give them a squirt or two when they bite. Also..locking the cats out, if you leave them out their for enough nights in a row, they'll eventually get used to the idea, and they will stop clawing and scratching at the door. My cat would throw herself at my door and scream and howl til I let her in once I first kicked her out, but now I dont hear from her at all when Im sleeping.

As for Cleo's meowing when hes in the living room and a lone...hes probably just a needy clingy kind of cat, and when he gets lonely he'll call for you. My cats the same..she'll start meowing if shes alone in a room until I come get her. I think some cats are just more needy and clingy than others.

 

My cats sleep in the family room at nights. We put their food and water in there and their litter is in there. It works out great for us and they are used to it. A couple of times we've tried to let them up with us at night but they kept pestering us so much we couldn't stand it anymore. So it was back to the family room.

We've also tried to just lock them out of our bedroom but they kept scratching the door constantly. So back to the family room.

They are very used to the family room. We never hear a peep out of them until we let them out in the morning.

Our one cat seems to like to meow at nothing when she is in a room alone, too. It's probably a normal cat thing.

 

These cats have you trained. They have learned that persistantly pestering you and your wife = getting fed. You can stop this by locking them out of your room and ignoring their crying and scratching at the door. It will take time but they will learn that this behavior does'nt benefit them any more and they will eventually stop. However, taking this approach would mean many nights of you and your wife not getting much sleep.

The other posters had some good suggestions. I think the automatic feeder would probably work best for you. They do exist and I believe you can set them for specific feeding times. If you can't find them at a store you can probably find them online. Good luck.

 

Thank You

Greetings

Thank you everyone who has posted so far on my topic. I have enjoyed reading your replies.

Yes I do believe the cats have us trained lol. They actually let us sleep in until 6am today. Can anyone else identify with the behavior of Cleo eating books? Does anyone know what would cause her to start eating paper?

 

My old cat would eat kleenex or paper straw wrappers whenever he could get ahold of them. Perhaps the books have been with another cat that she doesn't know about, mabye somehow they got exposed to some sweet smelling plant that she is attracted to. All I can tell you is have a squirt bottle of water ready and the second she starts tearing at the book spray her until she stops. This is VERY unpleasent for the cat, but ot harmful. It does the trick right away.

 

Abandonment

Do you think because Cleo was abandoned by he last owner she has developed some of these behaviors?

 

when you feed them what are you feeding them, how much? How long did it take for Cleo to lose the 3 lbs.? Both canned and dry food?

What time is the final feeding at night?

 

feedings

Cleo's feedings are done under a doctor's supervison. I weight her zt the vet each month to mark her progress. She recieves 1/2 a can of Vet diet wet food and a 1/3 of the same but dry each day. This food is broken down into 3 servings.

The last feeding at nigt occurs between 6-7pm when we get home from work. Clleo has been losing the wieght 5 to 6 ounces at a time and the vet says she is now at a healthy weight.

 

is it Science Diet food? Read the ingredients if it is - mostly grains.

I ask cause that makes 12 hours from their last meal until the next so I can see why they are probably bugging you so early in the morning - maybe move the last meal a couple of hours later and they might let you sleep later.

I have one that does this also....my Zeus. He's done this since he was a kitten - but he prefers 4am :? as his "get the hell out of bed you keeper of the can opener person"...drives me crazy. So last thing I do before going to bed is feed that bugger.

 

Re: Thank You

I found this link about pica and overeating:

http://petplace.netscape.com/articles/a ... artID=2932

To me it seems like the book eating might be anxiety, directly related to food restriction and/or boredom. I would mention this to your vet at your next visit and see what they think.

 

Cat food

I feed both cats Waltham Cakorie Control. I too have done my research when it comes to diet cat food. This food has quality ingredents which I will list sometime if people are interested. The food can only be bought from the doctor and is not available in any pet food store.

I use to feed them a brand of food from a pet store and I did my research there as well. It was ranked in the top 3 brands of diet food in North America. Just to be sure I took the bag to the Vet and we compared every ingredent with the Waltham food she sold. I was amazed at the differences.


I know its 12 hours from the last meal to the breakie but I'm at a loss of what to do. Cleo eats her entire meal in 10 seconds so placing it all down at once is no good. We also have to work around our daily scedual.

sight

 

http://www.placervillevet.com/feline%20 ... dition.htm

I wanted to mention my Zeus weighs 11 lbs and he falls in the section where when he lays down you can see his ribs. I have 3 vets at the clinic my furkids go to - 2 say he is fine, another says he's heavy. I have one female cat that weighs 8 lbs and I think is too thin now (she has lost weight from a URI that she got from one of my fosters).

The vet that says every pet is too thin - I had a mal/shepherd mix that weighed 90 lbs. She hiked with us, snowshoed with us, x-country skiied with us...very physical dog. This vet wanted to see her 10 lbs. lighter. I think he prefers the greyhound look even if the dog isn't built to look that way. Other vet said she was fine.

I've never seen your cat so I haven't a clue what she looks like - and I know 100% about fat cats and the health risks...I had one that was a food thief and she had lots of health issues due to her weight. I do applaud you for helping your cat gets its weight down.

But do you think the cat is just hungry all the time? Maybe it's time to start maintenance feeding rather than feeding geared to continued weight loss. Just a thought.

 

You speak soundly

You speak sound word.

The doctor actually said that Cleo is at a good weight now. I will call her and see what she thinks about switching the feeding to a matience program. I believe that she is hungry all the time, but thats only one aspect of it.

I can give you a good example. When we go away from the weekend we leave food for 2 days. This usually fills Cleo's bowl to the brim. Within the amount of time it took me to tie my show Cleo ate all the food. It took about 30 sec to 1 minute (not lying). I tried an expariment and gave her some more because she should have been full, but no she kept on eating.

I think it might have to do with her past life. When we found her she had cuts all over her body and other signs that she was outdoors. Maybe she had to hunt for food, or we under feed with the family who abandoned her. Now i think she eats all the time and quickly because she never knows when her next meal is comming.

I will call the vet today with your suggestion.

Thanks

 

yes...well....these morning wake up calls are beginning to be a little tedious for me too. max likes to play on my bed...he gets aggressive in the mornings, so i have to lock him out. this morning i could hear him jumping at the door knob. i wouldnt be surprised if he figured out how to get that open!!!

ugh!! :shock:

 

Something you could try, is to spread the food out over the house. Just have 3 or 4 plastic plates or something and put a little bit of food on each. that way wshe will have to breath after each bite. or mabye mix it with something she has to eat around. With my horses i use hay to mix it, i have no clue for cats. good luck!!!

 

lol horse child....totally funny....but possibilities....yes...possibilities!!!!

 

lol, thanks! my mind tends to come up with the craziest things sometimes! :wink: