My fiance just moved in with me and brought along her two cats. I don’t hate cats, I’ve just never owned them. I guess you could say I’m a cat tolerator. Ok I’ll admit it, I do actually like her cats I just don’t like some of their habits. The one that is getting truly intolerable is that they don’t sleep at night and apparently don’t understand that I need to.
I have two options. First, I can leave the bedroom door open. In this case her cats are free to come and go as they please. This is fine for one cat since she is very dainty and I can’t feel her get onto or off of the bed. The problem is her other cat, Art. He is a very large cat and could give a crap less about being dainty. He will just plow his way onto the bed and walk over whatever is between him and wherever it is that he decides to go. Invariably his path leads him over me where he has no problem stepping on my face or other more sensitive parts. I can’t sleep like this and have decided to go with option two.
I can lock the cats out. I have a large three bedroom house and it seems to me that the cats could find plenty to amuse themselves while I sleep. As it turns out, that assumption is just wrong. If the door to our bedroom is closed, it seems that the most amusing thing for them to do is to claw under the door and meow. The first problem is that this ruins the carpet. I fixed this by putting a plastic mat (one that helps office chairs roll on carpet) under the door. That keeps them from scratching, but now they sit outside the door and meow. Last night it sounded like Art was unhappy that his meows were going unanswered and he started trying to tackle the door.
With two more hours before I had to get up for work, I ended up locking Art in the basement. I slept well for the last two hours, but this nonsense has to stop. I don’t want to lock the cats in the basement every night. It isn’t cruel to them, there’s lots of room down there and a futon that they can lounge on. The basement is also where we keep the litter boxes, so messes wouldn’t be a problem. I just know that if I started making a habit out of this, both cats would disappear at bedtime just like they do when they know a vet appointment is coming.
So, what can I do to keep the cats away from my door at night? I’m thinking something like a motion detector attached to a strobe light or maybe a hair dryer. I remember seeing a device that you could plug into an outlet that was an outlet itself and was remote controlled. That way I could turn on a hair dryer plug it into this device and into the wall and when I heard the cats outside the door I could hit the button and scare them off. The problem, of course, is that I would still not be sleeping through the night.
I think you just need to give them some time. They may decide that getting tossed off the bed is a huge drag and they’ll go find somewhere else to hang out.
Signed,
Kalhoun (who’s bedroom door is permanently open since those little fuckers tore up the carpeting)
Cats are learning machines, like Terminators. If they step on your face or sensitive parts, bop them (low-intensity hitting without malice – cats do it to each other at the same time). Eventually the cat will get the message that tyou don’t like having your face or genitals stepped on, and will stop. Or at least do it less.
No joke. We’ve got four cats, the youngest of which is still attacking our toes at night. Cats simply have to be taught where the boundaries are.
I agree with those who said that they’ll learn, especially since they’re in a new environment. One of our cats (in our case, it’s the dainty one, Mimi, who’s the hellbeast) went through a phase where she would cry pitifully in the middle of the night. She didn’t understand yet that this was her new home, and we weren’t going to get rid of her. She’s needy like that, but she got over it.
She also likes to attack our bed in the night. So, when she does that, she gets kicked out. She still does it ocassionally, but it’s becoming more rare. She hates not being able to sleep with use, so she’ll stop the behaviour that gets her banished.
Our giant cat, Seth, is an angel, which is why I hate to kick them out - I can’t lock him in the bedroom and her out. He just sleeps on my head and purrs. He’s furry enough that it’s pretty much like having another pillow instead of a headboard.
No no no! You’ve all got wrong. The cats are jealous. They want your GF all to themselves. The stepping on your face and genitals is a temperamental way to communicate that you are treading on their turf. The more you fight it the more they will do it. I went through this with an ex and she would get pissed so my cat would just torment her all the more. My current partner only gets the ass in her face if she gets snarky with one particular kitty who has his little oedipal complex going on.
You should try to pet and cuddle the kitty when he/she/they? come to bed. After a while they won’t see you as competition and will curl up near you or GF but not step all over you or get territorial.
It is short for Arthur - King of the Britians. Either that or that was his name when we rescued him from the humane society.
I don’t think that he’ll learn not to jump up on the bed. He very well may have a learning disability. If I’m sitting on the couch in clothes that I can’t get cat hair on, I’ll throw him off the couch if he jumps up. As if nothing happened, he’ll jump back up and I’ll throw him back down. This will continue until I move from the couch or he gets distracted.
Would it be easier for them to learn if we always kept them out of the bedroom? Do you think that they are getting mixed signals because they are allowed in the bedroom during the day and at night if we’re awake and watching TV?
I do like the idea of feeding them at night in the basement. I’ll have to get the OK from my SO since they are her cats. They keep her awake at night too, but since she doesn’t start her new job for a few more weeks she doesn’t care if it takes her longer to get a good nights sleep.
Chao, I really do believe that they think I’m invading. They used to sleep with my GF every night when she lived by herself. I’d be fine if I could convince them to like me and accept me, but Art is just a wierd cat. Even when my GF was living by herself, he would walk out of the bedroom and meow loudly. I can’t deal with that. At least if the door were closed, it would drown out some of the noise.
FRDE, they don’t go outside. Art isn’t allowed because he will eat grass the entire time he is outside. As soon as he gets back inside, he invariably throws it all up. The other cat, Maggie, is terrified of the outside and will not go out if the door is left wide open.
I suspect he finds this game fun, and is pleased with himself at how well he’s trained you to play along.
The fuzzy black land shark who lives in my house walks all over me while I’m in bed, and I no longer wake up. Really, I just got used to it, same way you get used to traffic noise or a twitchy bedmate or a leg cast or anything else that initially interferes with sleeping but that you eventually have to adapt to or go nuts. Give it a month.
brewha, I hate to say it, but I think your financee has probably irevocably ruined the cats. If you don’t let them into your room at night from day one, they don’t pull the crying and scratching under the door patheticness you’re experiencing. But you can never let them in your room - not even when they’re cute little balls of fluff. A lot of people can’t harden their hearts against little kittens/just adopted cats and they get repaid by sleepless nights… I don’t know maybe if you lock them in the cellar every night for a couple of months they’ll forget that they’d rather be in her room, but cats are very difficult to retrain.
On the bright side, though, a lot of cats enjoy the basement a lot more than you or I do. They like exploring it, for god only knows what reason. Try throwing a couple towels in a box propped on its side (set so it doesn’t look like you want the cat in it) and they’ll probably claim it as a sleeping place after a day or two. If you give them special treats when herding them downstairs for the night(or open wet food for them down there and you might not even have to herd), it’s going to be a lot less tramatic for them than you think.
You can always try old reliable… the dreaded spray bottle. Get a clean new spray bottle from the drugstore, fill it with water and set it to stun, I mean stream.
A few times during the day, show Art the bottle, and give him a squirt or two on the back. He won’t like that, and he’ll learn to fear the bottle. Leave the bottle on your nightstand. If Art steps on your twig and berries, he gets a shot. If Art jumps on the bed waking you up, he gets a shot. He will learn to avoid the bed in the middle of the night, eventually.
Cats can be pretty stubborn, but they will learn if you make it uncomfortable for them.
Learn to sleep through it. Cuddle the cats so they don’t think of you as an interloper, then just sleep. Our mistresses have slept in our bed since the day they joined the household. There are the occasional disputes over possession of the blanket, but otherwise they are just furry pillows. The only time it gets uncomfortable is when they sandwich me between them and turn on their cat-magnets. Then I’m stuck until they decide to move.
My husband learned the hard way that when kitty is kneading the genitals and has her ass in your face, and you’ve decided you just can’t take it anymore, that a loud, sudden noise may very well frighten kitty out of the room; however, it is just as likely that he will be left with aching, scratched balls and a puff of startled kitty-fart in his face.
Gently remove kitty first… then scare the hell out of her.
**Cervaise **, I think that it is a fun game to him. I guess I am well trained.
elfkin477, I tried to convince her that we shouldn’t let the cats in our bedroom at all in the new house, but she disagreed. I am going to try to move them to the basement at night. While the basement is unfinshed, it has clean cement floors and is a big area for them to explore. Hopefully I can just get them into a routine that involves them going down there every night.
Cheesesteak, Maggie is terrified of the spray bottle, but she is not the problem. Art could give a shit less if you spray him anywhere but in the face. Since it is cruel and potentialy dangerous to spray him in the face, the bottle just doesn’t work.
dmatsch, I don’t know if Art will react to it or not, but I’ll give the boo boo can a try. I wonder if I could put a trip wire in front of my door that would cause the boo boo can to shake if they tried to scratch at the door.
Anastasaeon, I’ll definitely move the pointy ends of the cat away from anything valuable before scaring them. Thanks for the heads up, that’s one lesson I wouldn’t want to learn the hard way. :eek:
The only one of our two that’s a problem at night is the boy cat.
This is because he weighs 15 pounds and has delicate little feets. Otherwise known as the Paws Of Pain. He gets needy for the lovins at about 4am and his chosen method of obtaining the lovins is to find a person and walk all over their belly and delicate bits crying pitifully until someone gives him the lovins.
He’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so training attempts were less than successful.
My husband never had much of a problem - since he sleeps on his side, and therefore has no delicate bits available for the Paws Of Pain. I tend to sleep on my back - so plenty of vulnerable delicate bits. I learned to sleep with a pillow on my belly and called it good.
Either way, no the lovins for the boy cat at 4am.
Although, he’s better than our alarm clock. If his people aren’t out of bed by 7:30, he will get nose-to-nose with whoever is most convenient and cry until someone wakes up enough to either pet him or get out of bed. This is handy on weekdays when I have to be up no later than 7:40. Less handy on weekends - but easily solved by some minor pettings or a violent roll over to the side - tossing him on the floor - and then he just sacks out for another three hours or so.
We’ve had five cats now, and this doesn’t apply to any of them, except maybe Clarence. He’s the only one who insists on sleeping wuith us. Even our new kitten pretty much leaves us alone at night. Clarence and the kitten insist on sleeping with us or MilliCal, but they stay at the foot of the bed, and don’t generally stay all night.
Heck, we don’t close our doors anyway – it would be unusual for us to do.
