A cat that eats cardboard and other strange things....what do I do??

[leo_jasminesmom]

I know I haven't posted in about a month but I am having problems with my youngest cat and need some advice!! (bear with me, this is lengthy!)
Jasmine is almost 1 year old

- will be a year old in about 3 weeks. She has always been a VERY active cat and gets into everything.
I don't find it odd that she loves boxes and bags - this is normal cat behavior. I DO however, find it odd that if I bring home anything in a box and leave that box unattended for even 5 seconds, she begins to shred it to bits with her teeth immediately and even tries to eat it!

She eats EVERYTHING in site, no matter what it is! I find the strangest things in her litter box

The other thing that has become a problem in the last few weeks is her expecting me to get up at 3-4am every morning.

I mean she scratches on things and brings her toys to my bed and plays on top of me. She has only done this occasionally since I've had her, but lately it has been EVERY STINKING DAY. If I put her out of my room and shut the door, she scratches the door, tears up the carpet, and howls until I let her back in, where she proceeds to do the exact same thing she was doing that made me put her out in the first place!!!!!

I love my both my cats dearly (the older one is NEVER a problem) but she is driving me INSANE!

I try to play with both of them and spend time with them when I am home so I don't know what else to do! They have so many toys and a pretty nice size house to roam around in so I am stumped!
I feel like I have an ADHD cat!!! Do they make Ritalin for cats??

Any suggestions??

 

[hissy]

First of all don't get angry with her. I read a lot of anger in your post and it is not her fault. She is following instinct in those early morning hours, for her prey mode is in full tilt. Is she spayed? If not, she needs to be.

Play with her at least 20 minutes of interactive play right before bed.Then feed her a nice bowl of warmed cat food and she will sleep through the night.

About the boxes and bags, keep them away from her. Stick them in a closet somewhere that she can't get to them. She could become plugged up and you would then have to deal with an expensive vet visit to get her right again.

 

[tnr1]

My cat loves to eat plastic too so I am VERY CAREFUL to keep all plastic bags etc. away from where Tigger can get to them. I also have a bottle of bitter apple on hand if there is something I think Tigger might get into that I do not want him to "chew" on. Good Luck.

Katie

 

[linda_of_pgff]

Great advice from both the previous two posters!!

In the "do as I say, not as I do, necessarily!" school: eating cardboard and licking or eating plastic are probably both signals of something going on that isn't "typical cat." Having said that, I know of two cats in my extended family, both of whom exhibit this kind of behavior, and I haven't done what I think OUGHT to be done to figure it out.

If I were being really *good*, I would get a good case-taking for these cats -- see a good homeopathic vet with them. I've seen homeopathy cause some amazing positive changes, and I'm pretty sure it would help this. However, for my cat acquaintances, the problems are more petty annoyance than REAL PROBLEM, so, thus far, it hasn't gotten much attention.

Linda

 

[spotz]

I have also seen cases where this eating behavior indicates something not quite right with their diet. A good homeopathic vet would surely address this aspect, along with plenty of others. Sometimes we overlook the simple solutions, expecting life to be more complicated.

What are you currently feeding her, and do you feed on a schedule, or free feed?

Spotz

 

[monica's six]

I have 6 cats and four of them chew something. Casey loves straws, card board boxes, and other hard paper products like envelope mailers. Audrey has a thing for napkins from fast food places. Zoey & Isabelle like plastic bags sometimes.

After having taken them all into the vet to get a checkup and shots the thing they had in common was teeth in need of a cleaning. The other two could afford to get a cleaning too, but I if they're chewing as a means of cleaning their teeth.

 

[cilla]

I had the cardboard thing with Tara and Buttons. Tara only did it in the living room and I placed a bowl of dry food in the living room, and the problem stopped. Buttons only did it in the dining room and I think she did it out of boredom when I was on the computer. She started 'typing' with me and sits in front of the screen. So I stop and play with her. She hasn't done it for a long time now, but still helps me type.

 

[cazx01]

my cat also loves to play in plastic bags and boxes, but now i just make sure ALL the bags are not in his reach as that is dangerous for him, but i let him have the boxs, their his favorite toy

 

[monica's six]

yeah the plastic bags really bother me, the cardboard boxes don't bother me so much. I know they're not eating that.

The other thing that occurrs to me is that cats in the wild would have to rip their prey apart to eat it. Since they don't get the pleasure of ripping their dried food apart I wonder if the ripping apart of cardboard boxes and paper and envelopes is related to a desire to tear their prey apart? I don't know, I'm not a cat behaviorist, but it makes a big mess in my house when they get a hold of a box... but they do seem to enjoy it when they get one.

 

[brienne]

As far as eating weird things, there is actually a name for that. Its a syndrome of sorts called "pica" and its when dogs and cats have obsession with eating non-food items. One of my cats eats plastic bags. When I was growing up, my family dog would eat cotton balls- used or unused! Gross! But as far as this goes, they dont know of a cause. Best thing you can do is just keep the stuff away from them because it certainly is dangerous. Every night before I go to bed, I literally have to walk the house and inspect for plastic- or else I will hear my cat messing with it in the middle of the night.

Interesting thing too... It's certainly less common but there are actually PEOPLE who suffer from pica. They will do things like eat magazine papers, and they even have favorites as to which magazines taste better! No joke- I've read actual "scientific" articles talking about this!

Go to google.com and type in "pica in dogs and cats" and you'll get lots of sites talking about this...

Brienne

 

[hfrodoc]

Interesting. Usually that behavior derives from being a single cat. But since you have two...they should be good company for each other. Try some anti-scratch spray on your carpet, and maybe even the boxes she plays in. I know it's a little extra work, but if it tastes bad, she won't want to eat it.
I wish I could help more...Oh, I know they make this calming medicine for cats, that you can get at your local pet store. But I don't know if it is harmful if it repeated every day. I would call a vet and ask them if they make any medications to calm behavior. Not that I think medicine is the solution to this problem. It may be somthing as easy as changing the time of day you feed your cat, because cats go through cycles every day. Mine gets really sleepy after he eats. So if you feed her right before you go to bed, maybe she'll sleep with you instead of want to play....just a suggestion from experience.

Good Luck.

 

[aussie_dog]

Willow loves to eat the corners of my boxes (they're BIG boxes, holding my books) so a few of the boxes, especially the one under my bed, has funky looking corners. Buffy does it occationally, but only to imitate Willow (or so I believe). Willow only does it, though, when she gets excited or overstimulated (like if you rush around in the early morning, getting ready for work, both cats will start to go crazy and will start doing zoomies around the room).

Other than that, Willow is pretty good about what she does. Buffy, on the other hand, loves to eat foreign things. Her favorite is string, especially hair (since we don't offer her hair, she must be finding it on the floor), and that leaves for funny looking poops (they're connected like those ninja sticks, with two sticks connected by a chain).

That prey drive thing makes sense too. I've found that Buffy really loves toilet paper. Toss a roll across the room, and she'll chase after it, wrap her paws around it, and start mauling it. She tears the paper upward, finds another spot and pulls upwards, and goes back to the original spot and pulls up paper underneath the original tear. She doesn't use her claws much, she mostly uses them to make sure the toilet paper roll stays in place (and I betcha I'm gonna start seeing poops with fabric-like pieces here and there)

 

[leo_jasminesmom]

Monica's Six: The tearing apart prey idea makes sense! I have always felt like she was more a wild cat than a domestic one anyway! We think her father might have been a wild cat so that would explain her erratic behavior.

HFrodoC: I just might have to check on that calming medicine!
Spotz: I free feed her. My other cat was on a schedule when I first got him and it didn't work for him - he acted like he was starving all the time. So I just free feed both of them.

 

[kittens mom]

Kitten will dive into a pile of grocery bags and wiggle around until she has one looped around her neck and then run around the house. After thinking it was an accident I watched very deliberate behavior until she had one looped. This is supervised play for sure. I think she needs a cape.

Both of my cats lick plastic. When Kitten wakes up the first thing she does is go to the trash can and lick the plastic overhang on the garbage bag. BabyMook I think learned from her. However Mook will eat the thin grocery bags. We don't have many since we use cloth but some things have to wrapped.

Mook disembowels cardboard boxes. Usually during one of her self play rampages throughout the house. She doesn't eat it as witnessed by the piles of confetti littered around the area. As far as play boxes go we try to limit them to the plain cardboard but neither show much inclination to chew on those.

The horizontal cardboard scratchers are used constantly. To scratch and sleep on.

I see it as something they need that can't be found by a cat kept inside 24/7. Many cat toys have crackle sounds which seems to initiate some kind of prey drive in them. Housecats are also infantile in they have never had to grow past the kitten stage in many ways. Mine play much like they did as tiny kittens. The feral cats we had would never touch a toy once they started to actively hunt.