The background here is that, although I generally like cats, I have never lived with or cared for cats prior to the beginning of 2011. However, I am now house- and cat-sitting for the next six months. My two feline companions, Smoke and Mirrors, are healthy young ladies, and their owner has told me that they basically just need food, water, a clean litter box and some affection, and they’ll be fine.
Smoke, the older of the two (I think she’s around six, but I’m not positive), has been content since I’ve moved in to just go about her life as normal. She’ll pop up for the occasional pet now and then, just to make sure I remember her, but otherwise, she seems entirely self-sufficient.
Mirrors, on the other hand is less than two years-old and is very kitten-like. She is extremely playful and constantly seeking my attention. I’m guessing this is a combination of missing her owner and it just being her nature, but she wants to be around me. All the time.
Generally speaking, this is no issue at all. I give her affection and play with her when I can, and otherwise, I acknowledge her and just walk around her. It can be difficult to resist the pet-me-flop, but I manage when I need to. The problem comes with sleeping. The owner always left his bedroom door open and allowed the cats to hunker down with him at night. For me, however, having Mirrors jumping on and off the bed and swatting at my toes any time I dare to move them doesn’t work well, as I’m a fairly light sleeper.
What I’ve been doing to this point has been allowing her to hang out with me in the bedroom when I get home from work for an hour or so, and then kicking her out when I’m actually going to sleep (Smoke usually will stick her head in the bedroom for five minutes to sniff around and say hi, but doesn’t seem to have any desire to stick around). Mirrors would usually make a momentary protest when I closed the door, but that would be it. When I’d open the door in the morning, I’d find her laying right in front of it, waiting for me, and then giving me the “It’s about damn time” meow.
But for the last two nights, however, the protests have changed. I can’t quite tell whether she is scratching at the door with her claws or scratching at it with one of her toys, but two nights ago, she was making a lot of noise at the door and clearly trying to push it open. In between efforts, there was a lot of plaintive yowling (to the extent she can – she sort of squeak-yowls). This went on for about five minutes before I pushed the door shut hard all the way. She seemed to settle down after that.
Last night, however, was a different story. She didn’t stop. It went on for about 20 minutes. I finally went out and put Mirrors in the bathroom with the door shut so that I could get to sleep. However, I realized that this was a poor solution. The bathroom contains the litter box, so I’m either keeping Smoke from getting to it in the middle of the night (which I would assume is a VERY bad thing), or I’m locking Smoke in the bathroom with Mirrors (Smoke hangs out in the bathroom on her own and hides in the cabinets, so I never know if she’s in there or not), which isn’t tragic, but is also less than ideal.
All of this is a very long preface to ask you the following: is there some way to get Mirrors to cease the nighttime protests without having to punish her (and, incidentally Smoke)? What do you suggest?