First, let me preface this by saying that I am a dog person. I love dogs, our pooch is my recreational life, so to speak. We do obedience work, tracking, blood-trailing, and soon, therapy work. I don’t dislike cats, but I’d likely never have one except for the fact that Mr. Armadillo really likes cats.
Six or eight months back, Mr. Armadillo brought home a male, orange tabby kitten. Our resident ArmadilloKitty desperately needed a friend, so Grendel was the solution. They get along pretty well, and Poe has, for the most part, quit with the bizzare repetitive behaviors.
Poe is a great cat, never jumps on the kitchen counters, doesn’t steal things or destroy things, doesn’t eliminate inappropriately, no reasons for complaints there. Grendel, on the other hand, is driving me f*king nuts. Our house has to be in constant lock-down mode, because he steals anything and everything. Anything that can be shredded or destroyed, he’s got it. With the puppy, as long as I keep things out of reach and put away, we’re fine–but not with the cat. He steals things from cupboards, off the top of the 'fridge, the utility room shelves, and off the counter. Anything food-like, he steals. He just ate $10 worth of mice that were in the sink thawing for the snakes–theived them out of a sink full of hot water, by overturning the heavy ceramic bowl that I’d put over them for protection. Mr. Armadillo planned a romantic dinner last week, for the first and only time in the five or six years we’ve been together–I’m serious about that. He’d bought some candles and a nice bottle of wine, a loaf of good bread and some expensive cheese to surprise me. I got home from work and proceeded to spend the next half hour helping him search all over for the cheese. Fast forward to two days later, and the cat yarks up a wad of plastic with most of a manchego label still attached. He swiped a loaf of sourdough and shredded half of it. The rest was too soggy to eat.
He one day decided he didn’t one to use the litterbox–any of the three that were in the house–until two months later when we finally figured out what he wanted… evidently, one particular brand of clay litter. None of that dust-free, flushable organic crap for him, no sir. He destroys my houseplants and one of these days is going to poison himself, that is unless he goes belly-up from this afternoon’s fishing expedition. I still haven’t found the plastic bag the mice were in.
Please, someone tell me he’ll outgrow it. I love animals and I’d never dump him at a shelter, but I’m really thinking this is going to be a very long fifteen years, and I’d rather not spend it hating my SO’s pet. Dogs you can teach the rules of the house. What the hell do you do with cats?
It sounds like you have a real monster on your hands, and he’s obviously quite clever. My suggestions:
If possible, totally cat proof a room and put TONS of toys, cat towers, food, water etc in there. When you leave the house, put the terror child in the cat room. Let him out when you’re home.
Spray bottle. I know, a lot of people think these are cruel, and if you’re one of those, get a bunch of plastic straws. Everytime the cat does something you don’t like, puff in his face or spray him with water.
Consistency training. Cats are very smart, but mischevous as kittens. Train the cat to never get on a surface - no cupboards, no coffee tables, etc.
It sounds like your cat might be bored, or hyper active? Eating food and the plastic wrapping is a whole nother level!! Goodness.
Have your vet check to see if he’s not wormy and keep your eye on the litter box for anything that sgguest he may be having stomach problems
TMI Look for blood in the stool, loose stools, or mucous covered stools, or wormsFatcat had identical behaviour. He used to steal grain products in particular, would get passed booby traps we’d set to drag off an entire loaf of bread, and he once ate an entire box of uncooked Kraft Dinner. He ran off with a block of cheese (we caught him) and would try eating plants and anything he though might be edible, wrappers included.
It turns out that Fatcat has a very nasty case of colitis. His poor colon has severe ulcers and the vet said it looked as fragile as rice paper. The burning belly aches he was getting was making him misbehave and seek out a solution on his own. Burning belly for a cat, means “I need to eat” or “I need to induce vomiting.”
Tummy problems get cats to do weird stuff. So makes sure he’s physically in perfect health, to rule out any reasons for bad behaviour.
Fatccat was put on a very low dose of steroids, and that keeps his tummy in good enough shape that his poop is healthy looking and he’s no longer stealing food.
Well, at least he’s not stealing stuff any more than the average cat would when a crime of opportunity sets itself up too temptingly (I just can’t leave a slice of pizza unattended on the coffee table).
Oh, and yes, Fatcat also had picky pooping habits when his tummy was feeling bad. I think, he wanted something that made him feel “cleaner”.
But then it’s also not unusual for cat’s to be picky about what sand they use. For that matter, I insist on double-ply quilted toilet paper myself, so…
Thanks for the suggestions.
We have no doors in our house, so no real way to confine him outside of crating him all day. I’ve thought of doing this, except that he nearly always does these things when we’re home–like with the bread, I left the room for ten minutes while in the process of making dinner, and came back to a destroyed loaf of bread. The mice he swiped while I was upstairs.
Also, to address two and three, he never does any of it when we can see him–we’ve always been consistent about keeping the cats off surfaces (I clap and shout and they scram), so his solution is to wait until we’ve left the room, then jump up and do whatever it is he wants to do, then fling himself off the counter and run like hell when he hears someone coming.
Eats Crayons–I’ve never seen any evidence of worms at all, but it wouldn’t hurt to have him checked to see that there’s not something else going on internally.
Get some sort of child proof (cat proof) lock for your cabinets. I once had a cat who liked to steal bread. One day the poor guy choked to death on the plastic wrapper.
The food stealing made me think of worms right away too. It sure won’t hurt to get him checked over.
Slight hijack - what kind of snakes do you have and how secure are they? I’ve heard of some really bad incidents whey snakes and cats met up. Matter of fact, that’s how I got my Black Ratsnake. He ran afoul of a cat and was too scarred for my breeder friend to sell, so she gave him to me.
If this cat’s really good at break and enter, I’d take a second look at the snake cage.
Where did you get this kitty from? Was he starving at any point in his life?
I’ve seen and heard about cats that did not get much food when they were kittens growing up to be food obsessed. My mother had a kitten like this. It’s mother had “dried up” before the kittens were properly weaned, they were starving when we rescued them. She kept the smallest, and he was very food obsessed. Anything in a plastic bag would get chewed on - bags of apples, potatoes, bread - and he wouldn’t just gnaw on one potato or apple and realize it wasn’t something he didn’t want to eat, he’d chew on all of them. Unfortunately he had to put put down for another problem so he was never cured. I’ll have to check some behavior books to see if there’s any treatment for this.
Corns and a Brazilian Rainbow Boa. They’re as secure as is humanly possible. I learned my lesson about cats and snakes when a former roommate’s cat shredded a screen top and ate my yearling anery.
Well, I don’t know that he was ever starving per se, but we took him because a co-worker of Mr. Armadillo’s had three toms and a queen, all intact, and you can imagine how many cats she had shortly thereafter. The litterbox was, literally, overflowing–when we went to visit the kittens, I tried to wash my hands in the bathroom. What ended up happening is I opened the door, took a step in, got smacked upside the head with a billow of cat-ass-box fumes, stepped back out, and shut the door. So really it’s amazing the little guy even uses the box in the first place.
Uh, I guess that’s beside the point. What I meant to say is that I don’t know if he was starved or not, but certainly wasn’t overly provided for.
I just wanted to say that you can indeed train cats. Consistency is the key, just like with dogs. Course, the results aren’t quite the same - my cats are both trained to not get on any food-bearing surface, and they’re good when I’m around, but I still have my suspicions when I’m out.
As for the stealing, you’re the human - you can put things in things that a cat can’t get at until he gets a little older and calms down.
Oh, yes. I don’t know about the Brazillian, but the corns, even full grown, would definately lose in a fight. Even a rat can and will take out the odd snake. That’s why most people have their snakes on frozen or freshly killed rodents.
I was also wondering if the food stealing might be a power thing with the older cat? Perhaps the kitten thinks he’s “beating” the other cat to the food.
No seriously. Take a piece of heavy cardboard and apply loops of duct tape to it with the sticky side out. Then lay the cardboard on your counter tops. When the evil beast leaps onto the counter, he will encounter the duct tape trap. It only takes a couple of times of getting tangled up in that before he will stay off the counter tops or anything else you do not want him to land on.
We’re talking about a fifteen pound cat vs a fifteen ounce snake. Eve didn’t have a chance.
Ruby, on the other hand, my adult amel cornsnake will hiss and strike when the cats give her the eyeball through the glass, so they tend to make a wide circle when walking past her tank.
