This weekend we went down to our local pound and adopted two kittens. One is a black and white male who is very calm and loving, his name is Merlin.
The other is a two pound buff colored tornado named Typhon. He meows all the time! It’s driving me mad! And he is so needy. He follows me around constantly, demanding attention. And when I sit down (like now) he doesn’t settle on my lap and purr like a sensible cat, he paces on my lap, climbs onto my shoulders, tries to attack the curser on screen, and MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS.
Help! It’s hard to sleep with this tiny tornado around!
Do you think he could be Siamese or part Siamese? They have a reputation for talkativeness.
At any rate you need to play with him till he’s exhausted - I recommend the “Cat Dancer” toy which is basically a length of wire with some cardboard on the end. Its sterling qualities include cheapness, the fact that all cats love it, and the fact that you can make the kitty run all over the place while you sit still.
Unfortunately, most kittens DO NOT sit down and purr like a sensible cat - if your kittens are 8-10 weeks Typhon is really acting the more normal of the two. Mostly they grow out of it!! (this is why many people advocate adopting adult cats).
Sounds like a perfectly normal kitten to me. Mine still acts exactly like that, and he’s about six months old.
Some cats are just chatty. Two of mine are constant meowers, and they’re not siamese. All of them follow me around the house all day. The older ones don’t necessarily need to be up in my face every minute, but they generally like to be near me, and will follow me from room to room, and object if I walk by them without petting them or at least acknowledging them in some way.
I have a kitten that looks just like that too! He washed up during the 100 year flood in Atlanta a few weeks ago, barely 8 weeks old. When he cries, I feed him. Keeps him from under my feet too. He will not eat dry food, even if he is starving, I don’t know why, but so what? I really don’t mind. After a half a can of wet food, he quits crying. YMMV
Exhaust him. Use toys, laser pointers, and other items to help him burn off that kitten energy. Also get him one of those balls in a track that he can chase around in a circle for 5 hours every day if he wants.
Could it be that he is still getting used to being in a new place? IIRC it took our cats about a week or so to settle down properly. They were accidentally separated for 9 days once (one of them ran away), and when we brought them back together they were both meowing, hissing and growling at each other for a week even though they were from the same litter and should, by all measures, have no troubles recognizing each other. Cats take time adapting (and they aren’t very smart).
Just FYI, I’ve heard that if you respond to the meowing, it reinforces it. One of my cats used to meow pretty much only when he was hungry or wanted in/out of somewhere, but now we have conversations all the time:
“Meow.”
“Oh, really?”
“Meow.”
“That’s interesting; I hadn’t heard that.”
“Meow.”
“Oh, I know. That’s totally true.”
“Meow.”
"I agree completely.
And so on. He might have gotten chattier anyway as he got older, but you might not want to risk it.
ETA: “For those who have cats like this, how do you sleep with the mewing?” Shut them out of the room, and wear earplugs.
I also set up an automatic feeder at night so that they are not waking me up because they are hungry. Now they come and lay on top of or next to me and sleep quietly. For babies you just need to keep them awake and active for a couple hours before bed so they sleep at the same time you do.
Well, if you had a 2-year-old human baby who’d been abandoned and bounced from place to place without any love or stability, you wouldn’t think anything of him being clingy and needy crying more than is typical and basically using you as a security blanket, right? Well, that’s what Typhoon is, a frightened baby looking for security and comfort. Of course he’s going to cry and velcro himself to you.
The good news is that he should outgrow the really obnoxious part of it as he gets older and adjusts to having a stable, loving home. The bad news is that it will probably take a while. And he may still be rather chatty. Some of them are just like that. Our older cat still sometimes just wanders through the house bellowing for no apparent reason, but it’s nothing like what it was when I first had her and she was Velcro Kitteh. And, of course, like anything else, you get used to it and doesn’t bother you nearly so much.
