My Cat Is A Total Brat!

[heathernichelle]

Let me start by saying this: He is in no way in danger of being rehomed. He's mine until the day he dies & I am beyond thrilled to get to be his owner (MOST OF THE TIME).

Currently though, I AM FED UP. He's a baby & the first kitten I have had in 19 years, so there was definitely an adjustment period where I had to get used to having a kitten around...but I am fairly certain his behavior goes beyond kitten tendencies.

Also, please note that he turns 1 year old this month- July 13- and the OLDER he gets the worse his behavior gets. AND HE IS SO STINKING SMART- as in the smartest cat I have ever had (maybe this is the issue?) There are times where I can just see his little wheels turning and find something to distract him with before he causes any trouble.

So know that this kid as ALL THE TOYS IN THE WORLD. A 6 ft tall cat tree; a 4 ft vertical cat scratcher; a 2 ft vertical cat scratcher; a 'cat playpen' kennel with multiple tiers, toys, and hammock; 2 run through tunnels; a cat tee-pee; multiple cardboard ground scratchers in each room; access to three windows to look out; a battery operated chase toy; a circular chase the ball toy; 3 toy food dispensers that as you knock over / roll food drops out; plus a toybox filled with mice / balls / catnip treats / springs / jingles, etc. HE ALSO HAS ANOTHER CAT THAT PLAYS WITH HIM ALL DAY LONG. PLUS, my roommate and I both take time out of our days to play with each cat, so that is at the minimum two 20 minute sessions of direct playtime DAILY.

Here are the three things I would like advice on:

• DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR-- He is tearing up my carpets, in every room of the apartment I am living in and it is so bad, as in they are all frayed and the tack strip can be felt now when you walk on areas so I have to lay towels over the entrance. He is also chewing on my wooden furniture / blinds and I can see his little bite marks everywhere. These behaviors started about 2-3 months ago- I don't 'punish' him when I see him do anything, but I do stop him from doing it and then distract him to the best of my ability- sometimes with food (although I try to avoid doing that as much as possible as I don't want him to associate those behaviors with any time of reward)
• RUNNING OUT OF THE APARTMENT WHEN THE FRONT DOOR OPENS-- so the only thing my cat is terrified of is the outside world but my apartment entrance is enclosed and so he does not see this as scary. Rather, he enjoys running out of the apartment and up the stairs to my neighbors apartment and does this every time my roommate enters the apartment (but NEVER for me- only her). Also, she usually walks into the apartment and sits all her stuff down / grabs a drink before ever walking back out the door to go grab him. I am EXTREMELY worried that one of these days someone is going to be walking in and he is going to run out to the actual outside. Again, he is terrified of the outside world so I doubt he will go too far, but I don't want to take a chance. What if he hides somewhere we cannot find him? He's so smart, so he hears the outer door and runs to the living room then listens for the key to go in the lock. Once he hears that he runs straight for the side of door and as soon as it opens he is out of here....but again only when my roommate is coming in. HE NEVER DOES THIS WITH ME.
• BITING-- so the kid loves attention and if he feels he isn't getting enough of it, HE BITES. It's not hard enough to draw blood, but it's not pleasant, and he does not stop until the attention he wants is given to him. Also, in the morning when my alarm clock goes off he does the same thing until I feed him-- and a cat biting my face at 0600 is not something that I look forward to. I try to feed them after 2100 each night and leave dry food out while I sleep but it does not seem to matter. The alarm goes off, cat in my face biting my nose, my chin, my ear, anything he sees until I physically get out of bed and feed him.

So, like I said...love this cat but I am beyond tired of his super bratty behavior and am open to any suggestions you all might have to get him to cut them out. Thank you!

 

[rubysmama]

Sorry if I missed it, but he's neutered, right? If not, that could explain his desire to get out of the apartment.

But, then again, I find my Ruby just loves to go to the places that are mostly off limits. In her case, she'll fly down the basement stairs when she hears me going down them, as she thinks she'll get to go in the utility room.

I can also relate to him tearing up your carpet. Luckily, for me, I'm not renting, so the carpet Ruby is destroying is mine.

It seems like some your cat's "bad" habits, my Ruby has/had too. She doesn't bite my furniture/blinds, however, when I first adopted her, she used to bite at me in the morning when she was looking for breakfast. At that time she had "former stray cat food obsession", so was always anxious for food. She did get over that after a while, so I no longer have to worry about her early morning biting wakeup call.

I don't really have any solutions for you, but as you can see, your cat isn't unique in his "quirks".

Hopefully other members will reply with suggestions. Meanwhile, TCS has a few articles that might be helpful. I'll post the links.

The Dos And Don'ts Of Cat Behavior Modification
How To Stop Problem Chewing In Cats
How To Deal With Cat "love Bites"?
How To Set Healthy Boundaries For Your Cat
How To Stop Your Cat From Scratching The Furniture

 

[Timmer]

I think anyone who has a cat is not always 100% happy with the behavior. Cats are always curious and always doing something that maybe we wish they wouldn't do but that's who they are. I think with time things will settle down with your baby but it might take another year probably.
I had a similar living situation that you have with a cat who ran down the halls of the apartment building and I just let her go. Eventually I got a bigger apartment (because they raised the rent, not because of the cat). Some cats never lose that desire to get out of the house or apartment. Talk to your roommate about being more careful when he/she opens the door.

Regarding your carpets, do you clip his nails? Starting when they are young is a good idea. I have always done my cats nails and given them a treat when I finish and they tolerate it now. Just the tips. I don't cut down too far but enough so that they don't get a claw caught in fabric and hurt themselves and that also helps protect the furniture. But I tell you this, my Timmer cat shredded all the curtains and the shower curtain and I couldn't have curtains up anywhere. It upset me but I loved him so I just had blinds.
My point being you want a cat in your life sometimes you have to give up stuff that you can't control. Like shredding carpet and losing sleep. :-)

 

[heathernichelle]

Yes, he is neutered. The whole running out of the apartment thing is more like a game to him, a practical joke he plays on my roommate. As I said earlier he has NEVER done it with me. When I come in he just sits there calmly and waits for me to pick him up and give him kisses. My roommate also greets him with affection, but she never tells them ‘no’ so might be labeled as the pushover?? I’m more the stern one, but he is never punished in any way. I mean is that even possible? I just say ‘no’ and try to distract him with fetch (his favorite of all games).

Also, I have soft paws applied to both cats every 6 weeks. This helps with the destruction done by the paws...just not with the destruction done by the mouth.

Thanks for the replies. I understand that each kitty has their own set of quirks that isn’t always positive and I do choose to love him anyway!! There is no chance of him getting rehomed or punished in any way...I would just like to combat as much as I can so that my entire apartment isn’t destroyed.

 

[Etarre]

I do think cats are very sensitive to human personalities and roles within a household, so it's entirely possible that your cat understands that he'll get scolded by you if he tries to run out the door, but your roommate will put up with it. I adopted Gwen before I met my now-husband, and although he eventually moved in, he began as a visitor to an apartment that was territory that 'belonged' to Gwen and me. So she made him earn his spot in the household, and she really did always see me as the scoldy parent. She treated him more like an annoying older brother.

Gwen had her bratty moments as a kitten and adolescent, and used to do things like unravel the toilet paper, eat the plants, and break stuff because she was trying to climb unclimbable things. I didn't have a lot of success training her out of these behaviors, but she did eventually grow out of them. Things got a lot calmer when she hit 2 years old. So while I don't have much real advice for you, there could still be light at the end of the tunnel eventually.....

Props to you for being committed to your cats even when things aren't perfect and one is driving you crazy! I wish everyone had that attitude about their pets.

 

[heathernichelle]

Ok, so he’ll most likely just grow out of it? The last time I had a kitten his age I was 12 and since then I’ve always had older cats so I understand that’s i am just a little out of my depth.

(The shelter asked me to foster him while his back healed and my cat fell head over heels in love with him so I went ahead and adopted him for her. If you cannot tell, my cats are super spoiled and get everything they want- even if that’s a kitten of their own )

In the interim has anyone had any luck with bitter spray? My friend suggested that to deter the chewing but I am hesitant to try it as I know that it gets everywhere.

 

[catlover73]

Is there any way you can get your roommate to tell him no when he runs out the door? The reason I am mentioning this is I had an issue with my adult cat Casey biting me at times during play. My hubby would tell him know and walk away. He stopped this behavior immediately with my hubby. I would walk away and ignore him for a few minutes and then go back to playing with him. Once I realized my hubby was not having this issue I started following what he was doing and the biting issue I was having stopped completely. Based on my experience it is easier to get a behavior to stop if both of you are on the same page.

Hopefully the articles rubysmama posted will have some idea's you have not tried.

Hopefully he will out grow the running out into the hall. We had an issue with Casey darting out the front door to greet delivery people when we ordered in food when he was a 7 week old kitten. Casey loves people and wanted to greet anyone coming to our door in the driveway. We stopped this behavior by putting him in the powder room downstairs before opening the door. He decided he did not like being locked in my bathroom every time someone rang the doorbell so the behavior stopped. He still greets people at the door when they come in but does not run outside anymore.

The carpet scratching I never really figured out a solution to. I own my place so I just dealt with crappy ripped up carpeting on my stairs. We had a water damage issue and removed the carpeting completely from out stairs when we had to put in new flooring. This is probably not something that would help you since you are renting. The carpeting in the rest of my house was not being scratched.

I do not have any wooden furniture that gets scratched. I had to put couch covers on my couch and love seat from them being scratched up. They seem to scratch the furniture less with the covers.

When I was renting I just replaced the blinds in my apartment when I moved up because I was never able to solve that issue. None of the cats I have now chewed up the blinds even when they were kittens.

 

[heathernichelle]

We’ve spoken about it and she is trying!! She just gets overwhelmed easily and forgets to correct him.

Honestly, I have never seen a cat more intelligent than this one. I don’t know how to describe it, but his associative abilities are on point. For instance, he loves balls and we would toss them to him— one day he figured out if he brought them back to us we would trow them again. Also, once he jumped on the stove and burned his paw. Now he walks on the other end of the counter and puts his paw above the burners to test if heat is coming off them before he steps down. Or feeding time. He knows if he eats fast enough he can go steal his sisters food (and she’ll let him) so I started feeding him in his kennel. Now he follows me into the kitchen, watches me feed sis, and then runs ahead of me to his kennel in my bedroom and waits there for his food.

Or maybe the rest of my cats have just been really dumb and he is completely normal? I don’t know, just none of my othershave ever caught on to things like that before.