As a lot of you know, we have two cats, Mia and Molly. The two play well with each other, as well as occasionally with balls, toy mice, a crinkle tunnel, and similar items.
However, Mia’s favorite toy is The Stick With A String And A Dead Animal Part On The End[sup]1[/sup]. If I get it out to play with her, it’s approximately the same as taking an eight year old child to Disneyland, although the child would be comparatively lackadaisical. Mia will pounce and jump at this toy tirelessly when we wave it around, and I emphasize the word tirelessly. But if we do this in the afternoon or evening, she’s sure to wake us up for it[sup]2[/sup]. It’s so bad that we’ve put the fishing pole out of sight and out of mind. But I know cats want and need at least some interactive play with their humans, and I feel like a bad cat parent for hiding the toy.
So my question is, does anyone know of a way to use the toy with her, and not have her want it the following night at 3 AM.
[sup]1[/sup]The typical “fishing pole” toy, with either feathers or a leather tassel on the end and well known to most cat owners.
[sup]2[/sup]Mia wakes us up for lots of reasons or no reason whatsoever, so it’s hard to be sure that it’s the toy she wants. But she does definitely seem a lot more restless during the night after a fishing pole play session.
Can you get a mechanical device that would wave it around without human intervention? That wouldn’t stop her from playing at 3 AM, but it would let you get some sleep while she’s doing it.
We have what I refer to as a ring around. It’s a toroidal shaped toy with a ball inside the ring, and the sides of the ring are open enough that the cats can stick their little kitty hands inside and try to drag the ball outside. The cats are generally happy to play with this at 3 AM, although of course nothing beats waking up the human for skritches and snuggles.
Shove the cat off the bed every single time she wakes you up and hiss loudly like an angry cat.
Won’t stop it altogether, but will bring down the frequency.
Cats are nocturnal. They *want *to play all night. As long as you refrain from discipline every time it wakes you when you don’t want to be, you’ll be a prisoner of its behavior.
Animlas don’t have the moral consciouslness to be selfish, but that’s what their behavior amounts to. Your interests don’t matter to them whit one until / unless you do something which makes it matter to them in terms that are meaningful to them.
A quick dunk in the toilet or a bucket of water every time they awake you in the darkness would be effective.
Operant conditioning does work on house cats. But the negative feedback needs to be immediate, every time, and meaningful on their terms. In other words, it does absolutely have to be an experience they naturally identify as unambiguously unpleasant. What it doesn’t need to be is mean or injurious. Water pissses (most of) them off something fierce but doesn’t injure them.
