Help me NOT kill my singing cat

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Coping strategies! I need coping strategies!

Parents of toddlers, family members of compulsive whistlers, help me!

Now that the weather is finally nice, Fatcat has started singing. No not the sexual or territorial caterwauling, but happy-go-lucky, Gene-Kelly-musical ditties of unrestrained joy!

If he’s awake, then it’s unbridled “Mwa-wa-wa-wa-waaaaah!” – which loosely translated into humanspeak is: “Life is swell and I am happy! Doo-dah! Doo-dah!” – and it’s occasionally punctuated by the musical accompaniment of a good-natured toilet flush. (Yes, he flushes the toilet, particularly when he’s in a good mood.)

I can’t take it anymore! Yesterday, he finally wanted to go downstairs to Sniffs_Markers’s apartment, so I opened my door, he trotted down to her door, she let him in and he snoozed contentedly on her couch, with his feet up in the air so she could rub his belly. Ahhh. Peace and quiet at Crayons’s!

But then, she had to work on some musical arrangments. As soon as she got to work, Fatcat thought “Music! Oh, joy!” and started warbling along with her playing. “Mwa-wa-wa-waaaah! Aaaooooo!”

A few minutes later there’s a knock at my door. Sniffs: “Special delivery!” and Fatcat was plopped inside. Augh! He’s back! He’s an indoor-only beast and I can’t take the incessant singing! I’m afraid I’ll smack him! I tried to lock him in the bathroom, but then it’s just echoing-off-the-tile catsong with even more flushing!

How long will his joy last???

Coping strategies! I need coping strategies!

2

I hear your pain.

One of my cats, Lillian (the world’s dumbest, happiest cat) has taken to wandering into my bedroom at* exactly 4:15 every morning*, talking to herself. Loudly. I have to chuck her out of the room (along with her sister, Dorothy, who was quietly sleeping with me), bolt the door, and turn on my SleepSound.

At least now, I use the early wake-up to stagger into the bathroom and take a hay fever pill in the hopes it will kick in by the time my real alarm goes off at 6:30.

3

I can’t help - and all I can do is giggle about this. My only suggestion is earplugs and closing the bathroom door. Maybe if you sing with him and he doesn’t like your rendition, it’ll make him stop. My cat started to sing when she was about 8 months old. MrVena worked evenings, so I called him and told him that she was just lying on her side in the tiled kitchen Mwah MeYooooough-ing her head off. He comes home later, takes one look at the singing, lazy cat, and says in the sweetest voice, “You’re in f***ing heat, aren’t you, kitty kitty kitty.” Fixing her fixed 2 problem, now she just talks to me all the time, but no singing. Good Luck!

4

I tried singing along, but I don’t know the words. (It did make him poof up for a second though.)

I considered duct tape, but he could still hum.

My neighbours must think I’m nuts because I’m sure they can hear me threatening him: “Shut UP! Shutupshutupshutupshutup! Shut.The.F**k.Up!” but I don’t think they can actually hear him.

5

Sometimes, cats will develop urinary infection, & express **un-**happiness by “singing”.

Get the hairy mousetrap to a vet, & get him checked.

Also, check out my cool sig.

6

I don’t know how to make your kitty stop, beyond the usual behaviour modification stuff. What I do know is that you need to get video tape of this happening! America’s Stupidest Videos of Guys Getting Hit in the Nards would eat this up. You could become rich, well a few thousand bucks richer, if you went all the way to the finals. Dress your kitty in a stupid outfit, 'cause they like that. If you can get FatCat to hit somebody in the crotch while singing, you’ve got it locked up!

7

Nope. Definitely not the case. Fatcat has had the radical F.U.S. surgery and is regularly monitored for repeat infections. He’s an extremely healthy beast these days (though rather portly). He has very distinctive behaviour patterns when he is sick, “unusually quiet” is one of the first indications that something is amiss.

No, this is undeniably haaaappy singing. I’m hoping that once he gets used to the nice, sunny weather, the novelty will wear off. (Oh, please! Oh, please let the novelty wear off!)

8

<Sam Kineson> AAH! AAH! AUUUUGH! </Sam Kineson>

It’s a conspiracy! I am now at work (where there is no singing cat) and my co-worker is humming tunelessly!

AAAAH! Must’ve been bribed by the nefarious furball! Ever since lunch, she’s just been sitting there going: “Hmmmmmmmmmmm…” No tune, no song, just “Hmmmmmmmmmm…”

<Sam Kineson> AAH! AAH! AUUUUGH! </Sam Kineson>

9

It’s a plot - she’s channeling FatCat. Omigod! She’s a pet psychic!! Run!

10

Oh my am I giggling now!

Sorry, I can’t be of any help. Our evil kitty CJ just whines incessantly to be let out of HER house. Ugh. Sigh. We’ve learned to ignore her. Now I have this nervous condition…

**Love the Sam Kineson effect. How appropriate. :slight_smile:

11

Brechin (my parents cat) had lyarngitis (spelling?!) a week ago. He was totally quite for aroudn 30 hrs before he went into the vet. My mom gave him antibiotics and ground up asprin tables.

12 hrs later he felt better and ran around the house cherping at EVERYTHING.

Apparently around 5am he stopped.

12

Gah! Of course! Mind control! He’s contacted the mother ship and he has taken control of my co-worker’s brain (not a difficult thing to do, mind you, but still…)

13

TheLadyLion has to see this. Our cat, Oreo, is 14 and was never spayed so she goes into heat about every 20 minutes for a week at a time. When I hear her warbling caterwaul I usually turn to TLL and say “honey, the cat’s broken again.” I hve the urge to throw a show but that would be cruel with any cat. Oreo is a bit on the skinny side. Compared to her Calista Flockhart looks like a big fat pig. I’d consider throwing a wadded up Kleenex at her but afraid it may break some ribs if I do.

14

snort Eve, you’re a wimp.

Ms. Thang, Noel, aka Top Cat, wakes up my family at three am at the LATEST by banging on doors, scratching at furniture, crying loudly, jumping on people and knocking things off of dressers.

Misty walks on one’s head-all 10 pounds her.

Anyways, maybe it’s just me, but I like vocal cats. My late Fluffy was a complete and utter chatterbox. You’d walk in the room and LOOK at her, and she’ d go, “Meow!” Always. It was great.

Most of my cats speak, but not nearly as much as Fluffy. And Piper Grace only cries when she wants to eat, or if she wants out of a room and the door is closed.

15

I also like to listen to my cat myowl. I think she’s trying to tell me something important. I don’t think you can learn the joy of it though.

Maybe he just wants you to wrestle of chase him? West him out.

16

Hee hee. I feel your pain. Our cat Molly likes to stand in the middle of our dining room (hardwood floors, large open space) and meow to hear the echo. She particularly likes to do this at 5 a.m.

17

He’s not singing! He’s not singing! Oh, thank Og my prayers have been answered!

By the time I came home, it was a little overcast. Like the little birdies in the trees he likes the dazzling sunshine. With the sun behind the clouds, the most vocalization he did this evening was something that sounded suspiciously like: “Mneh, phooey!”

Nightingale FatCat does that too. He likes to hear himself sing like a four-leged diva and will find echoing “sweet-spots.”

Oh, happy, happy night! The curtain has come down the fat cat as taken his curtain call. Oh, marvelous, marvelous silence!

18

I’m glad that the horror has stopped.

Based on experience, however, you don’t need to worry about killing your cat.

As long as you just give in to the rage and make as serious an attempt as you’d like without using guile, cunning, or bait, you can try as hard as you want to kill your cat.

The end result is usually a cat sitting somewhere well out of reach looking slightly intrigued and you needing someone to call an emergency response team to deal with your own injuries, or at least extricate you from what used to be your computer desk.

Loud cats are much, much quicker than angry humans.

19

Obviously never seen the classic short “The Cat Came Back.”

20

Charlie used to sing, in a kind of jazz style, freeform scat sort of way. Think Cleo Laine in a cheap ginger fur coat. There were never any distinguishable lyrics, but, boy, could he work his way through the notes, skilfully shimmying across the tones and half tones. Mariah Carey, eat your heart out on that part.

Gertie, on the other hand, is not really keen on tunes. She prefers the ‘constructed sentence’ approach. Whilst driving her to visit the Cat Dr, she rendered me unable to drive when she stated, quite clearly ‘Oh, no! Let me out!’ It was not a fluke. She said it several times, and with an occasional change in the sentence form. I had to stop the car when, in response to my assurances that it was going to be ok, she said ‘Hullaballoo’. No messing. I nearly peed myself. She ignored me for a full 24hrs.

No advice on how not to kill your cat though.