Already feeling over my head...

Flybynight

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evertiro evertiro
If that's the case with your female cat, then it would be worth considering a male kitten as a playmate/friend for your kitten.
My two currently are two and five, both males and get along great. It is easiest to introduce kitten to kitten.
I think because the kitten was so young, my adult cat took him under his wing right away.
It was a good decision, as my adult was an indoor cat who I couldn't play with all the time when he wanted play. Sometimes he would drag a wand toy into the room and sit with it staring at me while I worked.

Let me know if the little guy likes the banana toy 🙂
 

Sarthur2

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You’d be surprised. Your kitten would likely bond very quickly to another kitten his age. Kittens love kitten playmates! They would rough and tumble together and it would get you off the hook. If your choice is to go it alone, you’ll just have to live with the kitten antics until he’s older. There’s no other single remedy at this stage.
 
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evertiro

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You’d be surprised. Your kitten would likely bond very quickly to another kitten his age. Kittens love kitten playmates! They would rough and tumble together and it would get you off the hook. If your choice is to go it alone, you’ll just have to live with the kitten antics until he’s older. There’s no other single remedy at this stage.
I mean, if it's just a matter of letting him grow out of it (and assuming he will grow out of it), then so be it. He's not actually hurting me, it's more of an annoyance... but I'll be keeping an eye out for a likely playmate if that's the recommendation!
 

Sarthur2

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Get him a playmate. Should be easy. There are usually tons of kittens who need homes at shelters. You’ll be amazed at how it changes things.
 
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evertiro

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So it's now been six months! He's grown a ton (duh) and somewhat calmed down. I did a second rescue (and technically a third and fourth) and picked up a momma and two kittens (one girl, one boy) that were maybe two weeks younger than Onyx. It didn't go well. Like, at all. All three love our outdoor cat (though it took some time to get to that point) but will immediately attack Onyx. And I don't mean horseplay; I mean blood. As a result, he's terrified of them and has, in turn, relatively seriously injured me while attempting to get away from even the sight of them across the house. And by relatively seriously, I mean the last time I had to get a few sutures after he put a four-inch, surprisingly deep gash up my arm. Did one of the others lunge at him? No! A kitten younger, smaller, and demonstrably weaker than him scurried across the kitchen doorway. The kitchen doorway is several feet down a hallway and through the dining room. I'm not overly concerned with the occasional injury; cats will be cats, and that isn't the point of this post. Let's move on!

First recent issue. Onyx insists on making messes. I think I mentioned once before that he likes flipping his water bowl. He's done that since almost day one. If there's food, it's okay. If the bowl has water in it, he drinks until he's happy, then immediately flips the bowl over, dumping the remainder everywhere. After the first week, I started taking the bowl away as soon as he stopped drinking, refilling it, and moving it; by the time I've gone through all of that, he's lost interest in making that particular mess until the next time he gets thirsty, and the cycle repeats. My workaround is annoying but tolerable.

However, there's a second super-common and insanely expensive one that used to be a rare thing and is now literally daily. Randomly throughout the day, he pushes his litterbox against a wall, sits there pawing, nudging, and clawing until he gets the right angle (the right angle being somewhere he can get "under" it), and flips the litter box over. If there's too much litter in it for him to lift, he'll spend literally hours dragging all of the litter to the entrance of the box, creating a little ramp, and then slowly empty the litterbox until he can get under it and, you guessed it, flip it. I end up with 80% of the litter on the floor, frequently combined with flipping the water bowl or flipping the litterbox ON the water bowl, resulting in a nasty mess that ends up everywhere. I just bought my third carpet in six months. My original carpet fell prey to his claws quickly when he learned how to scratch things. The second got mold after he spilled both the litter and water while I was asleep. I mopped, vacuumed, and steam cleaned ten minutes after waking up and still ended up with mold! We've also gone through three litter boxes trying to find one that he can't turn into a giant sandbox. The only thing I've thought of is potentially getting a litter box enclosure; he can't alter the weight of a cabinet, right? Except that my first attempt at buying one was shipped damaged, and they wouldn't do a return or exchange. Now I'm paranoid about quality, and almost all I've found have more bad reviews than good reviews or are in the $1k+ price range (I'm already out $299 on one). I've never bought (or even really wanted) one before; any advice?

The second recent issue, and it might not be an issue, is that he's picked up a weird habit of sorts in the last week. He's always liked his car carrier, but lately, he's been demanding it. On the one hand, cats like boxes. Still, his other boxes go completely ignored, including one identically sized to the carrier and with a matching bed.

Typically, I store his carrier on a high shelf above where I keep his food. It's higher than he's comfortable jumping so far. Lately, he'll sit there and whine incessantly, staring at it. If I don't pull it down for him, he gets destructive. He's shredded clothes, bedding, the current carpet (in four places now), blinds (he did enough damage that they became a safety hazard), everything up to and including people. The second I pull down the carrier and put it on the floor, he'll climb in it happily and sit there quietly. It doesn't sound overly concerning - save the damage if I don't reply quick enough, except for two things. First, it HAS to be in a specific spot. If it's not in that spot, he sits in it and screams at me (the first time I thought he was injured; it's a lot closer to his "ouch" sound than his "I need something" sound) until I put it in that spot. "That spot"... is right in front of the only door into my office. Meaning once he's in it, I can't easily get in or out of my office without moving it, which results in the "it's not where it belongs" tirade, frequently with the fun addition of being clawed and snapped at for daring to disturb him. Second, he'll stay there forever. Almost literally. The first few days, it was just an hour here and there before he'd wander off to find food, or chase a bug, or play. The last few days, it's almost the entire day. He'll leave to eat, drink, or use the litter box and will randomly insist that it's playtime as usual. I don't leave it out overnight, so he's forced to be out and about for the few hours a day I sleep (not his fault, I haven't slept well in years), but otherwise, he's been spending eight to ten hours a day in the stupid thing! I've had plenty of cats who picked a favorite box, and even one a while back who adored her carrier, but eight to ten hours a day every day of just sitting there is a new one on me. Thoughts?

Otherwise, all is going well! As of this month, he's finally fully vaccinated, and when he's not a royal PITA, he's become a very affectionate, loving cat!
 
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