“And Featherlou - I think you’ve hit the nail on the head about the solution to annoying things cats do - DON’T LET THEM IN YOUR BEDROOM AT NIGHT! Simple.”
—And have the cat scratching at your door and howling piteously all night? Not satisfactory.
I don’t have a cat yet… although I do have partial ownership of my fiance’s cat, Bailey, who is probably the real reason I’m marrying Ossin… all of his cats have started randomly screaming to be fed, even when they have food. They also enjoy high-speed chases back and forth across the apartment at 3 in the morning, with detours through the Venetian blinds.
One of my friends has a cat that will stand in the middle of the hallway, between you and the bathroom, and growl, with a weird, demonic expression. If you try to pass her, she’ll lunge for your feet. Another friend’s cat will let you know that it’s time to wake up and feed him by growling, then locking eyes with you, and deliberately knocking things off the nearest table. He prefers china.
Like training any pet to do anything, it has to start early and be consistent. We trained our cats to stay out of the bedroom since kittenhood (for medical, allergic reasons); we get a couple of plaintive bleats, then they leave us alone. So, yes, most of the complaints here couldn’t be fixed by closing the door because then they’d get a whole new list, but someone getting a young cat might benefit from deciding what they want to train the cat to do, and training it early. Our cats stay out of the bedroom at night, my cat is leash-trained, and neither cat is allowed on any surface where food is eaten or prepared (paws that touch the litter box are NOT welcome on my dinner table, not to mention that we can put a plate of food down and have it still untouched when we come back to it).
Cats are relatively easy to train. Its called a water bottle 
Just squirt them a few times when they do something wrong.
(Make sure they aren’t on anything they can damage when they dig their claws in for traction when they run away)
All of the cats we’ve had 8 in the past 15 years [we’ve had all of our cats die before they were 6 due to bizzare illnesses] knew not to ever THINK about getting on the kitchen counter. The dining room table they screw up a few times (only when we leave something interesting up on it). Other habits like eating plasitc, chewing through electrical cords, eating rubber bands are either avoided (no rubber bands) or the cats learn their lesson.
Granted you’re completely and utterly screwed when the cats learn how to open the fridge and the childproof cabinets…
I used the “make a loud pst noise and clap my hands loudly” method of training my cats - it scares them out of their skins, and after a few times, they are very wary of getting scared out of their skins. 
It’s a very funny-looking thing in my house when I do this to the cats when they’re misbehaving; I’m clapping and pst-ing loudly, and the cats are scrabbling to run away, with guilty looks in their beady little eyes. (I have no problem with the water-bottle method, but I didn’t always have one handy.)
Many Dopers have met Higgins, my very large and very loving and needy cat. He insists on sitting on us which is actually not too awful. Except for this: My Cat Absolutely. Must. Be. Touching. Human. Skin.
This means he is not content to curl up in your lap… he must reach up with his paws over your chest to try to get his paws to your neck or face. Forget trying to do anything with a cat in this position. Same thing in bed at night. Even when I’ve finally, after 15 cruel shoves off my chest, convinced him to lie BESIDE me instead of ON me, he snuggles close and then starts streeeeeeeeeetching out a little paw towards my cheek. He’s not happy until he has full paw-to-human-skin contact.
Several years ago, we moved in (me, my son, our two exceptionally wonderful cats) w Snookie and his less than steller 3 cats.
My kitties have since passed away (aged 19 and 18 years), so now we’re left with the other 3.
(Snookie, by the way erroneously claimed that my kitty, Mouse, was obnoxious. Nothing could be further from the truth. He used to complain that she’d jump up onto the chair just as he was in mid-sit, and he’d then have to jump when she yowled as he was about to sit on her. He then started looking behind himself before he sat down. She’d then wait 'til he’d done that then jump up. I contend she was ‘training’ him… )
anyhow, his cats. 2 out of the 3 go outside sometimes. In order to get in, they climb up on the roof and claw at my side of the bedroom’s screen (that’s where the roof is), so I get to wake up to cat yowling/clawing to get in, at oh, say 3 am.
so, last night, I’d made sure (I thought) to let outside cats in. Apparently, I missed one. So, on schedule, 3 am, claw claw, yowl yowl. I let idiot in and go back to bed.
a few minutes later, claw claw, yowl, yowl, I look out, and she’d led another g-damn cat up on our roof.
so, who told her to bring a friend home???
Ben and Gomez are the two Spawn of Satan.
Ben does not like to be touched, petted, or looked at, by anyone other than me. When the repairman came to fix my heater at the beginning of winter, Ben showed his appreciation for handymen by ripping up his leather boots. (One swipe, and that repair guy was outta there!) Ben is also petrified of the broom, but I think this is due to my ex-roommate torturing him and chasing him with it. Whenever the broom comes into sight, he freaks, and scampers as fast as he can get his fat butt out of the room. (Not very easy for a 25 pound cat.) He is a very quiet cat, but if it’s food time, you had better fill that bowl fast. He will yowl as if someone just neutered him with a dull, rusty switchblade. Things also apparently tend to frighten Ben as he uses the litter box. I have gone to clean it out, and found a poo stuck to the wall about half a foot above the top of the litter box. (I can’t put a lid on the box because he is too big to fit in there.) Ben also chews plastic. You know how sometimes pregnant women get pica? And they feel compelled to eat certain weird things? Ben must chew plastic. Especially plastic bags. Moreso, thick plastic that makes a highly annoying ‘crunch crunch crunch’ noise. And apparently it’s best to do it around 3 in the morning, preferably at the foot of my bed, after having towed some plastic bag out of the trashcans.
Gomez is Affection Kitty. As soon as I walk in the door, he must be loved and petted. Never mind putting down the keys, or trying to walk into the living room. He is also a Skin-Toucher. He MUST climb up on my chest, and put his head, paws, or stomach on my neck and face. He also talks. ALL. THE. TIME. And it’s not when he’s bored, or sad, or hungry. It’s when he’s breathing. If I had known he was such a talker, I probably would have bought a muzzle at the same time I adopted him. Gomez is also Acrobatic Kitty. I named him after Gomez Adams, because he has a tendancy to flip all the way across the room. He also uses the litter box more than any other cat in the history of felines. If I clean out the litter box, you can be sure that 20 minutes later, it will be half full again. And it’s not that he’s going so much, but that he starts, and stops, so that he can chase Ben, or attack the toilet, or come talk to me for a while. He’s a nutcase.
They scratch the shit out of your arms when you hold them underwater. How annoying is that?
But seriously, my cat has annoying down to a science. Here’s the latest disturbing development: she comes and rubs her head vigorously on my head whenever I lie down on the couch. Ever since I was informed that it’s her way of marking me rather than an overt sign of affection, I find it off-putting to say the least. Also, my childhood cat pissed on my head while I was sleeping, so I have an aversion to cats getting near my head. That shit doesn’t just wash off. I was on the top bed in a bunkbed, too, so that filthy animal had to make an extra special trip to piss on me. But I digress. Anyways, when she finishes with the aggressive head-rubbing, she’ll settle down, curl up on my legs, and then ever so subtly unsheath her claws. Not to the point of pain, mind you, just mild discomfort. And no matter how many times I push her away, she comes back for more. I think she’s gone senile, because she never used to come around me this much, and she doesn’t seem to recall that 45 seconds ago I smacked her halfway across the room.
17 years she’s been with me - WTF keeps the bag of bones going? She seems healthier than ever, although her going outside days are probably through, which indicates that she’s become somewhat feebler. Sheesh. Stop feeding the miserable beast and she just gets more crazy.
I want a Siamese, but no way do I care for more than one cat at a time. So I’ll say it for the 1000th time: fucking die already, Ember.
Tigger is always drinking from the faucet, even if there is water in the dish, also spends much time in the tub.
Vandamme is spending her time on top of the refrigerator, and the washing machine , has been known to nibblle on people when it is feeding time and the bowls are empty.
Littlebastard’s favorite spot is on top of a cabinet in the bathroom, fairly high up, needs to be petted for
Oreo is perfecting the trick of jumping up on one’s shoulder while one using the family computer, he can do this without clawing up your shoulder, it is cute. the people sleeper, slleps on backs or stomchs as he likes.
Julia, Empress of All She Surveys, living with the likes of us, and is fascinated by my spools of thread, and oil pastels, will lie across anything you are trying to read.
Mine is a peach, and the older he gets the easier he is to get along with. However. He likes to sit on my chest in the mornings as I’m sleeping, soaking up some extra warmth while waiting for me to get up and feed him. However, some Cat Rule forbids him from sitting on my chest facing me; so picture this, he senses I am waking, his tail goes up with anticipation of some food action and I wake up with a better view of the old brown cheerio than anybody could want.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he turns around to purr at me like the sweetie he is. However, he can’t tell the difference between food-happy and companionship-happy so he drools to beat the band. When the joy gets too much for him, he shakes his head, flinging kitty drool all over the place :mad:
I know now I’m not alone in being totally under the cats’ control-all these annoying things still strike me as irritating-but-so-damned-cute:o
After 6 months in a new home under a new schedule, Oops and Jake have come up with a new way of speeding the morning feed. While I’m watching the news, Oops, who weighs 8 lbs, will bait Jake, weighing in at a well-rounded 15 lbs, and they roll around howling on the floor until I give up and stop getting ready for work and feed them. They tried using this routine to wake us up to feed them, but after a few flying pillow attacks they realized the folly of their ways and waited for us to wake up.
And the sled-riding maneuver for scratching their butts cracks me up every time!
Wait. Waitwaitwaitwaitwait.
Have you no idea what Siamese are like?
I grew up with one. I love 'em, but they’re psychotic. And loud. I mean wake-people-next-door loud. You really read for that :D? Here, read a few of these first.
Heheh. I hope I never gave the impression I would be internally consistent in my MB blatherings. Pluses for me in re Siamese cats:
[list=a]
[li]Will be a beautiful animal.[/li][li]Will have interesting fur-flying interactions with my large, playful, non-vicious yellow dog.[/li][li]Will visit unholy terror on the ubiquitous stray cats around the apt.[/li][li]Will earn my respect and others’ fear with its surly, predatory demeanor. This will be a welcome change, because the current cat everyone loves save me. Actually me and the ex-roomate whose waterbed mattress she ruined.[/li][/list=a]
From many incidental secondhand accounts I gather that if you go over the line with a Siamese, Smokey, you are entering a World of Pain. This is compelling to me.
But loudness? That would be prohibitively unnerving. Do you mean yowling at all hours, and are you sure this is a characteristic of the breed rather than just your experience with one individual?
I am sure there are exceptions, but Siamese tend to be vocal cats.
Vocal? VOCAL? Hah. Siamese are known for their loud voices. What’s more, they tend to comment on every aspect of their lives…and your life, too. This isn’t just my experience, but the experience of my grandparents, and every book or article I’ve read about Siamese mentions their habit of “talking” constantly. A Siamese queen (unaltered female) in heat has to be heard to be believed, and you can generally hear her throughout the neighborhood. Siamese are also known for their habit of eating wool. Not every Siamese will eat wool, but a fair number of them do. They’re also known for their intelligence and sociability. I’ve got a Siamese or Siamese mix (we’ll never know for sure, we got her from the Humane Society), and I love her to pieces, but she DOES demand a lot of attention, and she DOES make an awful lot of noise. I wouldn’t give her up for the world, but I love just about all cats, and tend to get all gushy in the presence of kittens. (It’s not pretty, folks.) However, Siamese are not for everyone. The Siamese WILL consider itself to be the boss of the household, and woe to anyone who challenges that.
Running commentary for 18 years, I tell ya. That was our Dinah. And it grew to caterwauling when my father went on trips - she was so terribly lonely. The Siamese I’ve known have been extremely one-person critters, so that’s another thing to bear in mind.
Actually, she was never “my” Dinah since I was three years her junior. At best, she tolerated my presence. After a whisker-toying moment when I was four (I wasn’t even pulling, just stroking), I didn’t touch her for a good four or five years.
Don’t know if others have experienced this but when I got married Kendra took it rather badly. Not only did we move house but there was this male living there now too and he was sleeping in our bed.
She used to pee on his stuff and crap on his pillow. That is until we got Dawn, then she went feral. Now we have moved house again and are living with my SIL and her two teenagers. Cats are not allowed inside SIL’s house so both Kendra and Dawn have bonded over the shared experience of being kicked out of home.
ps - don’t tell my SIL but I took the screen out of my bedroom window so my gals can come inside at night. I justify this on the grounds that less native wildlife gets killed that way, but I don’t think SIL would understand.