- Joined
- Nov 6, 2018
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- 12
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My 10 month old kitten has been driving me completely insane. Here is some background you need to know:
I honestly love her to death, but I'm a human being with tons of stuff on my mind. I have to be on constant alert 24/7 to keep her from trashing the house and that's an impossible task. I make mistakes, I'm only human. I only have one brain. I sometimes forget to hide stuff she may destroy. I want to be able to return to my house without the fear of what I'll find. I want to be able to leave the house without spending 10 minutes hiding stuff and checking that there is nothing I have left anywhere that she might destroy.
She keeps inventing new ways to make a mess, things I may have never thought about before. Every single day I return home to find a new mess she has never made before. I don't know what to do. I play with her, I spend time with her, I cuddle with her, I give her affection, she has tons of toys to play with. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't know what she needs. I feel like I'm losing my mind. It has gotten to the point where I can barely look at her. I'm extremely exhausted by this. I just want some peace and quiet, just for a while, just for a tiny bit. I'm from Greece and cat trainers are not a thing here.
Please, give me some advice. I'm desperate.
- I found her when she was 2 months old in an incredibly bad state (infected eye, umbilical hernia, scorched paws, and sprained back leg). She has been sterilized and is completely healthy right now.
- I used to have a older cat but she escaped from the house and it's been 4.5 months since I lost her.
They were getting along well, but during the last month before my older cat ran off (Tigra), Tigra seemed very annoyed by the kittten's constant pestering. - She is extremely hyper and very energetic.
- I live in a small house where the kitchen is in the same place as the living room, so we're constantly both there.
- There are two scratch posts in my house but she won't use any of them. I tried catnip, I have been rewarding her whenever she even remotely gets close to any of the scratching posts but to no avail. She has torn my couch in strips.
- Extreme gluttony. I don't dare leave any kind of food (not just meat, seriously she has even attempted to eat fruit!) outside. She keeps digging the trash bin, she attacks any unwashed dishes I may in the sink, she won't let me eat in peace. I feed her the recommended amount of food on the label. She even attempts to drink juice, or chocolate, or tea I may be drinking at the time.
- Extremely clingy and needy. I can't sit to watch a movie, I can't read a book, I can't work (I work from home on my laptop, apart from my regular 8 hour job) without her constantly pestering me. Playing with her is never enough. No matter how much I play with her each day she constantly wants more. She follows me around the house like there's an invisible rope tying her to my leg. I go to the bathroom and she will stay outside the door, meowing as loud as she possibly can, until I'm out. I'll go out to the balcony to hang freshly washed clothes and she will scream so loud the whole neighborhood can hear her.
- She makes a mess, oh my god, she is capable of bringing the house down. If I forget to hide the trash bin, I'll return home to find all the contents shred to threads. If I forget to hide the kitchen rolling paper, I'll return home to find the floor covered in tiny papers and a non existent rolling paper. Just yesterday, I forgot to hide a bag with toast bread, and I returned home to find it completely covered in bread crumbs, which I spent two good hours cleaning up. She ripped a socket from the wall the other day! She disconnected the phone another time. She throws stuff off the kitchen counter. She upturns her water bowl and there's always fresh water in. She once broke a plate. What if I wasn't home? What if she stepped on glasses and I returned home to find her wounded?
I honestly love her to death, but I'm a human being with tons of stuff on my mind. I have to be on constant alert 24/7 to keep her from trashing the house and that's an impossible task. I make mistakes, I'm only human. I only have one brain. I sometimes forget to hide stuff she may destroy. I want to be able to return to my house without the fear of what I'll find. I want to be able to leave the house without spending 10 minutes hiding stuff and checking that there is nothing I have left anywhere that she might destroy.
She keeps inventing new ways to make a mess, things I may have never thought about before. Every single day I return home to find a new mess she has never made before. I don't know what to do. I play with her, I spend time with her, I cuddle with her, I give her affection, she has tons of toys to play with. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't know what she needs. I feel like I'm losing my mind. It has gotten to the point where I can barely look at her. I'm extremely exhausted by this. I just want some peace and quiet, just for a while, just for a tiny bit. I'm from Greece and cat trainers are not a thing here.
Please, give me some advice. I'm desperate.