Snookums the Party Cat

[cimorene]

The thing about Party Cat is that I still am not sure what he actually WANTS when he wakes me up in the middle of the night.



Unfortunately, sometime last spring he realized that he could more effectively get my attention - and actually, for the first time, bully me out of bed - by concentrating his harassment on waxjism. To protect her, I started to follow him out of the bedroom going, "Okay, WHAT DO YOU WANT?" This became a habit where I'd simply carry him straight to the sofa, make myself a nest there and read until I fell asleep. But after a few weeks, when I dozed off, he went back in the bedroom to harass waxjism. He made it clear that he would do this if I didn't trail him around the flat the entire time like a bodyguard.

Then I actually tried playing with him, but he didn't really want to play any of the things he likes in the daytime. Once I gave up on getting him to play, I tried shutting him up in a different room, or just out of the bedroom, but there's nowhere in the flat far enough away to muffle the sound of his constant angry yelling and repeated flinging his body against the door - Wax can't sleep through it at all (unlike me).

Eventually I realized that the only way to prevent him from harassing Wax was to lock him away from her, and the only way to prevent him from yelling about being locked up was to be in there with him.

So now I take him and my pillow straight into the library, shut the door, and tuck myself into a cocoon of blankets on the sofa. That doesn't mean I get to go straight to sleep, though. He has to pace all over the room and deliver a dramatic monologue, and he requires signs that his audience is paying attention. Sometimes he spends a time rustling around the room, making ominous noises like he's about to start ripping books off the shelves and eating them (he's done it before), or eat the giant monstera. Typically I have to spend an hour or two reading to keep myself somewhat awake while he gets this out of his system before he comes to lie down on top of me and purr.

This is significantly better than the past arrangements, but it still involves an hour or two of forced wakefulness in the wee hours and spending half the night not in my bed.

Comments

[vass]

but he didn't really want to play any of the things he likes in the daytime

Does he like being brushed? Sometimes that's what Beatrice wants, when she's being insistent.

[cimorene]

No, he actually gets mildly offended by being brushed. He doesn't even want to be petted or scritched. He kept running away and hiding when I was trying to tempt him with cat toys and ribbons and strings. ಠ_ಠ

[vass]

Cats. Why so weird?

[cimorene]

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

My theory is that he wants it to be daytime and for interesting things to happen, but idek what is so interesting about people getting dressed and making breakfast. It's certainly not like it's usually full of kitty fun times. In fact he usually wanders off somewhere and dozes through it...

[torachan]

Oh man, I thought Chloe had annoying habits, but at least she's not that bad. D:

[cimorene]

I was horrified to discover that this is apparently like a fairly... common... or at least widespread problem. Jackson Galaxy's solution is to wear the cat out in the daytime so it doesn't have any energy left, and then to train it not to harass you at night by not reacting to the harassment.

But he fully admits that doing that can take WEEKS. Weeks of lying there playing dead and being unable to sleep through the night! And she has to get up early for work!

But even if we had a long enough vacation to spend on this (and who wants to spend their vacation like that?), it would still be difficult because she says things like "AH!" and "Stop!" automatically, before she wakes up and realizes what's going on. That would probably encourage him.

[torachan]

Yeah, for me I can just ignore Chloe (she mews loudy, scratches on the walls, rattles stuff, bangs doors if she can find any that we've foolishly left movable, etc) and generally fall back asleep, but it really bothers Carla and she's not able to ignore her, so we have to give in. :-/ Usually if we go and put down some wet food in the kitchen, that will satisfy her (even if she only takes a few bites).

[cimorene]

I have mostly resisted doing this because he's already a very pudgy cat, and I try to give them a can at a time to avoid moving things in and out of the fridge. But maybe this should go on my list of things to try.

[niqaeli]

This sounds very miserable and I am so sorry you're dealing with it! :/

It sounds really unfortunate Wax can't sleep through the noise he makes as just shutting him out of the bedroom would be relatively simple. (Which is what I do when ours decide it is time to romp through the bedroom loudly. But they don't make that much noise at being shut out, either.)

I hope that maybe he will just -- spontaneously chill the fuck out? And then you and Wax both can get some decent, uninterrupted sleep. <3

[cimorene]

It does seem spontaneous when he stops doing it - he never really hits every night, though sometimes three or four in a row. But we've had breaks that lasted weeks before! Maybe Wax will eventually get desperate enough to sleep with earplugs or we'll buy a white noise machine...

[princessofgeeks]

I am so sorry. We have a big fan in our room that we use for white noise (the reasons that we need white noise to cover up other noises is immaterial, but anyway)....maybe that would help you sleep through the distant partying if you could put the cat up somewhere at night?

You have all my sympathy.

Keeping the cat awake more during the day sounds good -- that's what you have to do with infants who get their days and nights mixed up like this. But if you're both at work all day, not viable.

[cimorene]

I am not employed right now, but I am anxious to change that. When I do, this problem is going to get a lot more wearing, that's for sure.

Snookums is kind of hard to play with for various reasons - he seems to get his best workouts in when he's playing by himself or with the BB - and I kind of dread trying to force him to play. My attempts so far have met with limited success, but I probably didn't keep it up for long enough.