Humping problem and common causes

[gardenandcats]

My male Persian started this behavior just before he was neutered at 6 months old. I thought the neutering would end the humping wrong.. I have a fuzzy blanket on the bed. he gets on top of me while i am sleeping every night might be 1 time but usually its 4 or 5 times during the night and humps. It wakes me up he is meowing and seems in a trance hes not interested in me patting him either at this time. He gets humping so bad hes shaking. I have to make him stop it..
I had the vet check him out and he says all seems ok health wise. And some males just do this and often will out grow it. I hope so..


He gets plenty of attention and is a big love bug.But this humping is annoying! I never knew male neutered cats did this untill I had this cat.And I have owned many males before. I wonder if its the blanket as thats the only thing he humps? Guess I will try taking the blanket off.

 

[planetx]

my neutered 3 year old male has also just started humping - it was triggered by a new blanket I bought which he seems to have fallen in love with.
I don't think it's attention seeking, he's at the blanket when I'm not around. There were no changes in his living arrangements either, only thing I can think of is that there may have been a female in heat nearby. It's a bit sad that they can still have urges after neutering.

 

[gumbles]

I am so "happy" to read this. My Chincilla Persian is 2½ years old and started it a few months ago. At first I thought he was kneading (because he is so longhaired it was hard to see), but when I rolled him over on his back he had an erection.

This continued to go on. Only when I'm laying down he will do it on my arm or leg. When I move him he gets cranky and makes a "meeeeh" noise & at times I get a little bite.

I took him to the vet, as I was worried he was in some sort of pain as it started out of the blue. He got a hormone injection, but he is still doing it.

He gets lots of attention, so I don't think that would be it. Have any of you guys had any luck with ways to get them to stop? Or do I have to accept this is a lifelong thing?

 

[jennyr]

This is a very old thread and I saw that I posted in 2008 that Wellington had stopped doing it. I was wrong, he still does it with Biscotte, and she and I just accept that it is something he does. The strange thing is that often now he does not 'mount' her but experiments with other positions -often it will start when they are curled up together ot lying side by side. I never knew cats would do that. But I have spoken to several vets about it and either they don't really believeme or they have no solutions. Si I would just accept your cat's behaviour as part of his expressive personality.

 

[niki tompkinson]

thats happening with my male cat. i also thought he was in love with the stuffed toy

 

[yosoygottino]

I had a humper, Cloudy, who lived to age 19, and was humping up to the last day of his death. No joke.

My ex thought it was sick that I let him, but, I would once in a while, since I just thought there was no real harm.  I mean, he just knew if felt good. That's all. 

Oh, and he'd get really upset if I  tried to interrupt him.    I always felt bad for him, since it never seemed to be over for him.  Like there was no completion of the act. He'd just sit there in his little trance humping away. Poor guy. 

Now my new cat, male, age 2 has started it.  I don't want to go down that road again.   He will do it in my lap. He'll start off just kneading, then he turns a little humpy. Once he's finished, he'll just settle down and take a nap in my lap.  It's no where near as long and drawn out as it was with my previous cat, Cloudy, God rest his goofy little soul. :-)   

I will try blowing in his face as someone else suggested.   I don't want to make him mad. But at the same time, if this is really a dominance issue, I don't want him to dominate me.

My BF says my last cat abused me and had no respect for me, since I let him dominate me.  Now, I want to do whatever I can to keep the respect of the new guy.   Have you ever heard of anything so absurd!!

 

[robcat]

Thank you. It all makes sense and I think I new in my heart the problem. We rehomed two cats who had been fostered and confined to a small room in a windowless house for 8 months.They were sold to us as 10 year old brothers but shortly after having them it was evident one was much older and soon became frail with mulitple illnesses. The last few months we were hand feeding caring for sick cat and it was during this time the humping begun in the other well cat.

Sadly our cat died so I can now give more time and affection to the humping one.

 

[yosoygottino]

Oh, wanted to give an update on my little Gotti monster.  

I tried blowing in his face to distract him, and it WORKS!!!!     He stops, and just settles down on my lap.

Wish I would have tried this with Cloudy cat!

 

[zoogrl]

I enjoy that this thread has been going for 6 years And I'm really glad I came across it. I moved into my grandmother's house at the beginning of this year. She has two cats (one 10 y/o male and a 4 y/o female) , and when I moved in, I brought my 3 y/o male into the home. No problems. The boys actually get along much better than the female does with either of them. Well about a month and a half ago, Grandma's male started biting her arm and doing a little "dance" on top of her. I work for an animal rescue and recognized the signs. He had never had a humping problem before. I decided to look it up today, as I, like the OP, thought it was weird that a cat that old would start this kind of behavior. Well, thinking back to about the time he started this behavior, I had brought home almost-weaned, bottle baby kittens, and then 2 weeks later, another foster kitten. Based on the OPs' consultation, I completely believe that the attention factor must be why he started this behavior. He is a pretty independent cat, but he likes his "Momma-Simba Time." Since the kittens have been old enough to wander around on their own, they have taken over his favorite snuggle spot, Grandma's lap. So whenever he gets on her lap, or gets some private time with her in the bedroom (haha), where the kittens can't go, this behavior occurs, to varying degrees and with varying frequency.

I was surprised to find this information, but very glad I did. Of course, Grandma feels bad, but now that she knows, she has vowed to make sure he gets some extra time with her - no kittens.

 

[gardenandcats]

My Persian is still humping  a couple of times a day always on a soft blanket,

 

[ericat]

I have three cats, one is an outdoor cat and two are indoor, unless it's lovely weather, then it's harness/leash day on lawn.  My middle baby, Boy has decided to assert his position in the household and most notably, his position as MY Boy.  Swizzle, our youngest, is the object of his *affections*.  While she's lying or sitting somewhere, he'll suddenly position himself behind and over her, grab her with his front paws and sort of pull her back to him, making little weird noises.  He is oblivious to the world around him when he's in the moment, but it's really all show, he doesn't actually 'connect'.  Then, just as suddenly, it's all over and he looks around like, 'Oh, here I am, right, yesssss....'.  I actually took pictures, so I could find out what the heck he was doing.  Boy is neutered and Swizzle is spayed, by the way. 
 

 

[mytoyboy]

i read all the suggestions about humping cats..My cat  5yrs old desexed started humping  on a fluffy blanket which was ON ME .It felt weird.only about  a yr ago. now when its cold I have to put a sheet over my blanket. it seems to happen about every 3 wks. He looks at me and smootches up to me  and I'm waiting for it because i know what is going to happen.Tonight i put a sheep skin above me and he did it on it but kept looking at me. i left the room a few times and he hadn't stopped for TWENTY Mins.I felt sorry for him so had to look up an answer. This seems to happen to a lot of cats.. Thanks everybody on here.Maybe I should change his name from MYTOYBOY.He is a ragdoll cat....

 

[callista]

I think maybe they just do it because it feels good. I mean, why do humans do it even when it's got nothing to do with reproduction? (Yeah, I know, TMI... here's your brain bleach.)

It seems harmless to me. Maybe embarrassing for the owner, but... ehh. Not hurting anybody so why bother, right? Though, it could be that the cat's bored; so making sure that he gets lots of attention and intriguing toys to play with sure can't hurt.

 

[mlrobinson0803]

My cat does the same thing at least ten times a day. I feel so bad for him because we have two other cats and a dog. William (the cat) is very timid and doesn't like to come down stairs because one of the other cats likes to play with him. William like it when I stay in bed and cuddle with him but I cant be there all day.  

 

[emilymaywilcha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by M.L. Does this apply to neutered male cats that hump spayed females?

That actually may be more of a dominance thing rather than actual humping.

How can you tell the difference between humping and dominance when that happens? Wilbur was a dominant cat, but he also was a stray so he could have sired kittens before I adopted him.

 

[pooper scooper]

The only thing I don't get is why he only does this when we lay down and turn off all the lights?  We've had him for over a year, and we have our play sessions with him, also he's got plenty of toys.

Throughout the day, when he wants to sleep we will generally let him.  If he's spending way too much time sleeping we will interact with him here and there so he won't be up all night.  But pretty much, if he really just wants to sleep and not be bothered, he'll go somewhere else so he can get his rest.

Then like clockwork, every night, as soon as we lay down he'll come to the side of the bed.  I used to think he was just looking to make sure we were in there, because he would just go "mrrrrrr?" and if you said good night to him (even though we do before we lay down) or basically acknowledged him, he'd either jump in the bed and lay down, or in his little bed on the floor.  Now he goes and gets his one toy (and it's just the one, the first one he ever got) and it's not a problem, but he's just so LOUD. 

That is where I am, he is not loud during the day when he humps his toy, I don't even know he's doing it until I see him.  It's only at night that he yells at the top of his lungs.  Last night I had to get up and put it in another room, which he was not happy about, but I was already at the point where I could still probably squeeze in about 5 hrs sleep and needed it.  He proceeded to yell for about 10 minutes then gave up.  First thing this morning like a shotgun, when that door was opened he ran in and got his toy. 

I don't even know what if anything can be done about it, I hate to keep locking his toy up but we have to sleep.  I wonder why it never seems to stop?  I could deal with it if it did not go on all night.

 

[melbchsurfer]

Thank you for the info. My 5 year old nutered male Maine Coon just started humping our blanket about 2 months ago, and doesn't want to be bothered while doing it. He is a lover boy and is demanding of attention, so it makes sense.. But, he wants me to stop petting and kissing him, and to put him down. Then he walks over a few steps and starts humping away. He seems to want the blanket more than me holding him... then, he licks himself and jumps off the bed. Every time. Now, it says to give them more attention, but he gets all our attention in the AM when he displays this bizzare behavior. Any ideas???

 

[truckergrl6cats]

I have an 8 year old neutered male cat who just started humping about the last year or so.  He was neutered very young, 8 weeks old, as he was a shelter kitty.  He has decided to become amorous with my arm.  It is rather irritating because if I move my arm, he gets furious with a very loud and angry "Merrr!".  I also can't touch him while he is "busy", but I am considering maybe giving him more attention when he's not completely focused on my arm.  I haven't tried the blowing thing, but I definitely want to give it a try to see if it stops this behavior.  It's a relief to know so many cats have this issue, I was wondering what in the world was wrong with my cat.  My other male cat does not do this and I also have females that he totally leaves alone.  Maybe I should be honored he picks me? Haha, will be interesting if I can somehow find a way to stop it.  Although one awesome deterrent has been my older female cat that boxes his head when he tries to come near her.  So if she happens to be on my lap, I'm saved from the humping.

 

[kmkaeberlein]

I've had this problem since I adopted my cat. I adopted him at 7 months, a little bit after he was neutered. It wasn't TOO bad to begin with, rarely noticeable but I got pregnant February of this year (2012), and since then it has gotten worse. He will even climb on me and do it, kneading my belly. It's annoying and I give him a lot of attention but it doesn't seem to be working. Any ideas on what I can do to get him to stop? He is now 3 years old.

 

[franfontana]

Thank you he is a 3 year old ferrel mau and when he does this my 4 year old mau comes up and get in between me and him.  They don't say anything to each other because for the most part they are best buddies...but it does cause my 3 year old to get down.  Then, my older boy comes back purring. lol   He's very protective of Mummy.  

Thank you, again!