hey cat community! I have some vocal-cat behavioural problems I was wondering if you all could crack.
my cat boy biggins has always been pretty vocal and chatty, but it’s gotten pretty unbearable lately. I’ve started walking him on a harness at the local primary school (it’s open to the public out of school hours). he’s amazing to walk - super cooperative and sweet with the harness. but when we’re home, he’s been non-stop throwing howling tantrums when he can’t go.
how do you handle this kind of behaviour? I’m ordering some earplugs and ignoring him in the meantime, but any advice would be great!
Orange Cat 🐈 = Chaos 🔶
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Case dissmissed 👨⚖️
One of our 4 kitties started doing the same a while ago, always around 10-11am. In my experience as a cat dad of over 30 years it boils down to one of those things:
- Food/Hunger/Water: Maybe his current food/water/feeding location isn’t to his liking (even if he liked it before), or the feeding time is inconvenient for him
- Attention/Space/Power shifts: Did any of the persons living in the household change up their routine? do any other pets/activities currently hog your attention? Did another cat start taking over a sleeping spot after you started your walks? Also, walking your cat MIGHT (thats cat specific) put stress on him because his now much larger territory cannot be defended while he’s stuck at home; not all cats are cut out for walks even if they show no issues during a walk and many are happier just staying indoors
- Toilets: Not necessarily (only) cleanliness, but location also in respect to feeding / water locations, and probable medical issues regarding defecation/urination (one of our boys had bladder stones a few years back - he was quite vocal after toilet visits)
In our case it was caused by one or both of the 2 things: a bit of hunger around 10am (while all other cats in the household are asleep), and one of the other cats lately started hogging my wife’s attention and cuddling a lot more with her, taking time away from HIS precious headscritches-time. We fixed it giving a small amount of food at 10am (just a few bites), before he starts his behaviour, and intentionally giving him a weekend of bonus attention which shifted time back to him over during normal times too. It’s very cat - and situationspecific; he is definitely our most human-oriented cat, so i’m pretty sure the attention shifts were the main culprit.
Don’t be afraid to try different things, but don’t change too many of them at the same time and give changes a day or two to sink in. If your cat cannot get something he likes, always offer an alternative to him! I hope you find out whats bugging your cat!
Our orange tabby is a crier and he sometimes will talk to us until we follow him to the litter box and guard him/watch him poop. That’s the last thing we check after we’ve tried all the things you’ve listed. Then it’s time for meds.
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I swear I’m not affiliated with Jackson Galaxy but he has a video on just about everything cat-related troubleshooting. 6 Reasons Why Your Cat Over-Vocalizes - maybe there’s something in there that will help.
jackson is a great resource haha, thanks! I suppose it’s somewhere between boredom, attention and generally being quite vocal.
If he started yelling after you started taking him outside, he’s probably wanting to go outside again.
If you take him out at the same time every day, he’ll probably learn the schedule pretty quickly and will be quieter during the non-walk times, as long as he knows he’ll get to go out again.
I have two vocal girls, one of them very much so. When she starts yelling about something she cannot get, I offer something else she likes that I’m willing to give. She’s very cuddly, so offering pets and a head to bump into calms her down in most cases. A short additional playtime is usually a viable alternative.
Our two Siamese mix (ages ago) had a very fixed time for outdoor walks. Once a day 3 pm, they could stay out as long as they wanted but once they were inside, they were inside. Next walk is next day 3 pm, deal with it buddy. Siamese are very talkative so that routine really helped. They knew the next walk would be at that time no matter their protests.
My own cat tends to overvocalise at sunrise. She thinks 5 am is a good time to be fed. I ignore her too and eventually tell her no. She does not like to admit it but she does know what “no” means. Sometimes I’ll push her away from me. She eventually grts the message and stops for a while and a few weeks later she gets the bright idea that she could tell the two legger at 5 am that she is hungry…
It’s really good to figure out why your cat has so much to say, usually something can be done about it.
not sure if it would work but how about randomly giving treats when they’re occasionally quiet?
Assuming its not hunger or bathroom related, in my experience its because the cat’s bored. He enjoys the walks and has fun, and the walk probably fulfills a need to “patrol” his territory which he finds rewarding, but he can’t go on the walk often enough - or long enough - for his tastes. So he figures if he yells you’ll let him go patrol some more. I’d say redirect him . Play with him in the house for 10-15 minutes, then wrap it up with a kitty treat and he should go take a nap for a bit. You could also hide his food around the house come feeding time to encourage him to patrol his home instead of being focused on doing it outside.
I have no idea if any of that would work, every cat’s different. I can distract mine from wanting in rooms (he refused to wear a leash and so cannot go outside so he’s vocal at closed doors) just by playing with him or giving him attention usually. But its also temporary and he’ll do it again. Alternatively you could do the earplug-ignore thing when he cries at the door/harness but invest additional time to engage him when he’s quiet, that way you aren’t encouraging the behavior if you don’t want to be.
Is the cat sterelised?
Could be just heat.
he is!
I’ve seen this behavior before in the past. He wants a bite of cheeseburger.
