Cat Staring At Us Across The Room For Hours - Change To Behaviour

[ArchyCat]

If your cat were human, you would suspect that she has strong obsessive compulsive tendencies. Have you consulted a vet with a background in feline behavior? There may be a medical approach to reduce the intensity of her obsession and she may eventually return to normal after treatment. Good luck.

 

[dustydiamond1]

No, I don't think you've done anything "wrong" and it seems there is nothing "wrong" with your cat -- it is just her personality and her current interest. Please DO NOT LEAVE STRINGS, shoelaces or other things like that lying around -- she could be seriously harmed, or worse, if she swallows any of these! Im astounded that no one has brought this up.
Only use these types of toys when YOU are holding them for her.

 

[thefiresidecat]

never leave any kind of string or shoelace or anythign she can eat out. that can cause some truely life threatening incidences. I recommend a kitten or second young cat. you can't give her the exercise play time she needs. (not yoru fault. you just aren't a cat) she's bored and lonely. sitting and staring at you is entirely normal cat behavior. my maine coon does it regularly. but just because not because it's play time. that behavior is begging for a friend. in my experience 2 cats cost the same as one more or less. doooo etttt.

 

[thefiresidecat]

also these toys I have found engage ANY cat lol. just make sure the ends are folded in otherwise when they chew on them it can hurt their gums.

BOINKS they are a finger trap basically that you can fling across the room by pressing together with your fingers

 

[Brian007]

I like the look and sound of Boinks, thefiresidecat !

At the risk of suggesting something obvious, have you tried a Da Bird toy? I can't imagine a cat not liking to play and it's 'low-maintenance' from a human workout perspective. You need to put it away after play to prevent it from being bitten in two but toys that must be hidden for safety reasons are all the more exciting!

Another suggestion is a child's toy that fires foam darts. My lot will happily chase and fetch the darts from a toy blowpipe and get tired out in the process.

A Cat Dancer is another great toy that moves like an insect, and is very human 'low-maintenace'. I've been playing Cat Dancer with cats for more than 30 years, and it's never failed yet.

My brother had a staring cat who would follow him around and stare at him for hours on end. He only stared at my brother, even though there were plenty of other targets in the household. It was very unnerving but also very endearing at the same time, as he clearly adored my brother above all else.

I'd probably try to ignore her stares as much as possible to reduce their unnerving appeal. Cats invariably get bored if their human is being boring.

 

[daisyd]

I love when my Gracie stares - she’s doing now whilst laying on my slippers . She’s quite a quiet cat so that’s her way of getting attention from me. If you don’t look at her for a while does she not walk away ?

 

[LadyTammy]

My votes get her a play mate

 

[cindy san diego]

x post from Reddit because I was recommended to post here.

Our cat's behaviour has recently changed and it's very unnerving. When we first got her when she was a skittish and standoffish cat who didn't like us at all, constantly bolting and hiding under the couch. Over the course of about a year she settled into a sweet but still timid friend who would sit on the couch with us, play, and generally be sweet and calm. Recently we think we might have inadvertently interfered with this as there's only one thing that has changed that we know of, and we're not sure how to proceed.

Over Christmas we discovered that she liked to play with a piece of string that we'd taken off a present. Her reaction to the string is about 40000% more enthusiastic than any of her other toys and because she liked it so much we went along with it, because she was enjoying it and it was fun and we didn't think we could cause harm introducing a game. Problem is it looks like we might have.

Her regular behaviour is now just sitting on her haunches in the living room about 6 feet from the couch, eyeballing whoever is in the room, sometimes for literally hours, and it's grown to the point where she's almost too unnerving to be around. She won't lie down and she won't settle. The only thing that seems to adjust this behaviour is if someone gets her string, or any string-like object moves. Headphones, a power cable, a shoelace. If anything like that twitches she'll leap up and instantly seek to play, leading me to believe that she's sitting and staring because she's waiting for us to get up and play string. She won't sit with us on the couch and cuddle anymore, and won't sit by herself in a relaxed manner. It's like she's a brand new cat with a new singular focus.

We're still playing with her, because it's the only nice and interesting thing we can do with her now, and we initially had hoped that 'playing her out' would settle her into relaxing, but we have no luck. She's like the Energiser bunny and even if I play string for 30 minutes she just returns to her spot and starts eyeballing you again. It's like she's constantly in predator mode, and all the calming acclimation of the past year has just vanished.

It's been this way for about a fortnight now and things are now uncomfortable and she's actively annoying us. We really enjoyed that she had settled and became loving because we'd had such challenges with initial nervousness that we thought she'd constantly be unhappy in our home. Now we seem to have wrecked it and we're just getting glared at. We're starting to feel like we've broken her, or shaken a screw loose in her brain just by introducing a new game that everyone liked.

There are no known underlying medical issues (was vet checked and vaxxed in early Dec.) and nothing else we know of has changed (no poor treatment or known shocks)

Does anyone have any advice? I've had conflicting advice so far of "Play more" to "Take the string away for good and wait for her to get over it" but I just have no good idea as to what I should do.

1st post so if I've done something wrong here let me know.

 

[cindy san diego]

My boy cat who's a big Ragdoll mix has a partial diet of canned food for his urinary issues. When he's hungry, he stares relentlessly at me to feed him. He will not stop, no matter what, till I give him the food he wants. Yes, he's spoiled!

 

[LAL]

He stares at you, you feed him, he learns to keep staring at you...How To Train Your Human

 

[cindy san diego]

Haha, you're absolutely right! It's hard for me to deny his wishes! Ha.

 

[margd]

It's been this way for about a fortnight now and things are now uncomfortable and she's actively annoying us. We really enjoyed that she had settled and became loving because we'd had such challenges with initial nervousness that we thought she'd constantly be unhappy in our home. Now we seem to have wrecked it and we're just getting glared at. We're starting to feel like we've broken her, or shaken a screw loose in her brain just by introducing a new game that everyone liked.

There are no known underlying medical issues (was vet checked and vaxxed in early Dec.) and nothing else we know of has changed (no poor treatment or known shocks)

Does anyone have any advice? I've had conflicting advice so far of "Play more" to "Take the string away for good and wait for her to get over it" but I just have no good idea as to what I should do.

Maybe your cat would enjoy the Fling Ama String Cat Toy.

View attachment 215688


Basically it consists of a string moving up and down the length of the toy. My cats both love this toy so I can recommend it from first hand experience. The price is steep but worth it to me since Chula and Paul get so much pleasure from it. Chula is like your kitty - she sits for hours staring at me, trying to send me messages telepathically.

It's like any toy with a string - you have to disconnect and remove it when you aren't around to supervise.