We have a pretty severe problem with one of our cats: it is keeping us up at night. When we bought our first house we started putting the cats in a cat room at night. We did this for a number of reasons, including so that the cat that is a problem wouldn't wake our young son up at 5am anymore. There are three cats and two of them have no problems being in the cat room at night. When it is time for bed they run in and jump into their beds. However, we have one, that we think is at least part Maine Coon that doesn't seem to like this.
For several months, he was fine in the cat room. Then he started meowing at all hours of the night. We'd try to squirt him at night when he meowed but that didn't do much of anything. After a few months of being very sleep deprived we finally let him free. I was at the end of my ropes because I was getting woken up around 3-4AM and was so furstrated by this problem I couldn't go back to sleep. We keep food, water, and a litter box outside the cat room for this one cat. He still occasionally meows at night and wakes us up, but this behavoir has drastically reduced. He started to sleep with our young son and he was very happy about it at first.
However, now our son is saying he wants the cat locked back up again. The reason: he keeps waking our son up at night to play. This is getting to be more and more frequent. We don't know what to do. Letting him free was a temporary solution until we found a way to keep him quiet at night. However, it is becoming a more pressing situation because our son doesn't want to be woken up at night to play...
We took the cat to the vet and she said he is healthy and that is has a behavioral problem. She didn't want to presribe anything to him. She also said that there is a medicine that keeps dogs from barking and she said she'd see if there is anything like that for cats. We told her this is very important to solve because we can't all be woken up by this cat for as long as it live (maybre 8 more years at least...). However, she hasn't called back, and we can't keep living like this forever. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to keep him from waking us up at night? Preferably suggestions that will allow us to keep him in the cat room at night. We are at our wits ends and we are afraid we might have to give him away if we can't keep him from waking us all up at night.
Thanks.
For several months, he was fine in the cat room. Then he started meowing at all hours of the night. We'd try to squirt him at night when he meowed but that didn't do much of anything. After a few months of being very sleep deprived we finally let him free. I was at the end of my ropes because I was getting woken up around 3-4AM and was so furstrated by this problem I couldn't go back to sleep. We keep food, water, and a litter box outside the cat room for this one cat. He still occasionally meows at night and wakes us up, but this behavoir has drastically reduced. He started to sleep with our young son and he was very happy about it at first.
However, now our son is saying he wants the cat locked back up again. The reason: he keeps waking our son up at night to play. This is getting to be more and more frequent. We don't know what to do. Letting him free was a temporary solution until we found a way to keep him quiet at night. However, it is becoming a more pressing situation because our son doesn't want to be woken up at night to play...
We took the cat to the vet and she said he is healthy and that is has a behavioral problem. She didn't want to presribe anything to him. She also said that there is a medicine that keeps dogs from barking and she said she'd see if there is anything like that for cats. We told her this is very important to solve because we can't all be woken up by this cat for as long as it live (maybre 8 more years at least...). However, she hasn't called back, and we can't keep living like this forever. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to keep him from waking us up at night? Preferably suggestions that will allow us to keep him in the cat room at night. We are at our wits ends and we are afraid we might have to give him away if we can't keep him from waking us all up at night.
Thanks.