Stop the cat stampede!
February 1, 2007 2:56 PM   Subscribe

How do I stop the cat stampede?

Help me get a good night's sleep again! Nosy Parker is my year and half old Bengal cat. He's normally a great cat, but he's recently gotten a case of the midnight crazies: Meowing loudly, running circles around the house, launching himself from my roommates head. (!) It all begins around 2 am and lasts about an hour every night.

I've tried the obvious - increasing the amount of exercise and attention he gets throughout the day. Unfortunately, he loves the water so a spray bottle isn't much of a deterrent. It's a new habit for him so I'd really like to nip this in the bud.

Ideas?
posted by Space Kitty to Pets & Animals (25 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
We lock the cats out of our bedroom and leave a loud fan blowing outside bedroom door to drown out the meowing and thumpity thump.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 3:08 PM on February 1, 2007


Bengals are very social animals. I will guess that Nosy (what a pretty boy he is...) is bored and wants attention. Right now he's very young and has lots of energy. And if he doesn't have other cats for companionship, then you are his sole source of entertainment.

How to stop the midnight games? You can get up and lock him out of the bedroom whenever he first starts his antics. (Of course, then he'll sit outside your bedroom door and howl.) You can adopt a little friend to keep him company when the tall two-legged cats refuse to play. (Two Bengals = twice the destructive energy, however... be careful.) Or you can stay in bed, pull the pillow over your head, and try to ignore him.

We do all three here.
posted by goetter at 3:19 PM on February 1, 2007


My cat is about the same age and does the same thing, though with him, it's usually at about 4 am (he also flushes the toilet repeatedly during the day). I haven't figured anything out to stop the behaviour, however. But, the more I ignore it and don't react in any way, the less often it seems to happen, although it's certainly possible that I could have just become better at sleeping through it. Hopefully(!!) it's a phase.
posted by eunoia at 3:21 PM on February 1, 2007


I used to have a crazy kitty who had to be locked outside the bedroom. During the training period, I kept a stack of paperbacks by the bed. When she'd make noise outside the door, I'd lob a paperback at it. BIG NOISE, but no harm, and no kitty howling after a few nights.
posted by frykitty at 3:28 PM on February 1, 2007 [1 favorite]


My cats started doing that around a year or so.
They're 5.5 now and still do it.
Good luck.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 3:30 PM on February 1, 2007


You really just have to totally ignore him. Play dead. Don't open your eyes, make a sound, move, shift, blink. If you can hold your breath, do that. Any reaction you have to his antics, negative or otherwise, only shows him that he can get his humans up when he wants them up. My cats used to do this for the first 2.5 of their 4 years. It was only when we consistently ignored them, and suffered about a week of kitty acrobatics on our bed at 3 am that they gave up and either went to go play in the living room or would sleep on our bed with us. We're a lot less exciting when we don't react to their nonsense.
posted by tastybrains at 3:48 PM on February 1, 2007 [1 favorite]


Yeah. I've accepted this as normal cat behaviour. There's no way to train them not to have the heebie-jeebies when the urge strikes them.
posted by loiseau at 3:49 PM on February 1, 2007


My cats do the "stampede" occasionally (it's amazing that two light-weight and agile cats can make themselves sound like a clumsy herd of buffalo)... Usually I just yell "Hey!" in an angry voice, or clap my hands really loudly, and that's enough to distract them (they get the cutest "who me?" looks on their faces) until I can get back to sleep.
posted by amyms at 4:03 PM on February 1, 2007


Dittos. We are on cats No. 3 and 4 over a 30-year period. No. 1 went outside every night, marauding, and died a natural or unnatural death out there somewhere. No. 2 went outside for the first 10 years, then vet bills for torn ears and the like made us turn him into an "inside cat", but the only way this worked was to feed him in the basement at our bedtime and then go to sleep. Numbers 3 and 4 were "inside" to begin with, and are used to the nighttime ritual of feeding at 10 or 11, and the basement door gets shut until morning. They have a lot of space and toys there and don't complain unless we sleep late.

If you haven't got a basement, you need to get one.
posted by beagle at 4:06 PM on February 1, 2007


Cats are crazy. My cats always had their own "bedroom" (the den) which they were locked in at night. (mostly because my sister's cat, Scott, would decide if you were asleep and he wanted you to play, the best way to get you to wake up was knock something breakable off of the highest shelf he could get to...) When they were little it was hard to wrangle them in there, but after a while, they got into the schedule and didn't mind so much. If you make sure he has his own bed, blankie, stuffed animal, whatever, in the room with him, and maybe give him a little treat or feed him when you put him in there,he should get the idea eventually and sleep through the night. When he gets older,if he calms down, you can always let him out to snuggle with you.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 4:08 PM on February 1, 2007


My big cat has her own special version of the stampede. She'll chase your toes from atop the covers. It doesn't matter that your toes are likely not moving, because she'll get them moving and then the fun really begins.

Lock them out. By that, I mean, you need a second cat. But probably not another Bengal. And get a kitten.
posted by bilabial at 4:16 PM on February 1, 2007


Best answer: Hardcore dog person here, but my roommate adopted a cat from the neighbor last year, so by default I am living with a sweet but largely baffling (to me) feline. With that caveat in mind, I have found that waiting till nighttime to feed him (then taking the bowl up in the morning) has markedly reduced the yowling, thumping, all-around kitty hysteria in the middle of the night.
posted by scody at 4:18 PM on February 1, 2007


Best answer: Thanks for all your answers so far!

We've recently introduced my roommate's cat to the household - we're hoping they'll end up being good companions/entertainment for each other, but her cat is more timid than Nosy so it may take awhile.

If it's a choice between kicking him out of the bedroom or putting up with the stampede, I guess I'll have to learn to live with the herd of buffallo. It's just so damn cute when he head-butts me awake in the morning...
posted by Space Kitty at 4:38 PM on February 1, 2007


Best answer: Is your cat constipated? That's the only time my cat does the stampede. Bellyrub and food change fixes that. Other annoying behaviour at night can often be ended by forced cuddling under the blanket. Either they fall asleep there or after they escape, they try to avoid that reward by being quiet (in my experience.)
posted by Listener at 4:43 PM on February 1, 2007


bilabial : She'll chase your toes from atop the covers. It doesn't matter that your toes are likely not moving, because she'll get them moving and then the fun really begins.

In our house we refer to this as 'kitty is hunting the blanket monsters' again.

On topic: step 1 is to lock them out of the room, (the fan idea is quite good too as the mewling is what bugs me), if that doesn't work, or you can't live without your cats sleeping in your bed, step 2 is to try the food right before bed thing. Our cats get stupid sleepy after a big meal.

Step 3 is my favorite. Catnip right before bed (not catnip toys that they will bat around like crazy, just catnip. Ideally sprinkled onto a towel to keep it from scattering all over your house). Stoner kitties rule! and generally are mostly interested in rolling around and drooling, not racing around the house like madmen.
posted by quin at 5:13 PM on February 1, 2007


Best answer: Even if the cat tolerates water, I bet he won't like canned air. Obviously, don't get him in the face, but a couple times squirting him with this, and he'll run as soon as you pick up the can. If you're not willing to close off the bedroom, this is the next best thing.
posted by desjardins at 6:45 PM on February 1, 2007


My kitten Erwin Schroedinger does this as well. I find that if I lure him onto the bed and scratch him behind the ears, he'll usually fall asleep. It's worth a try...
posted by amileighs at 9:52 PM on February 1, 2007


Best answer: Sophie went through a little phase of launching herself high up on the wall to chase the shadows made by the 5:30 am-ish start of traffic outside.

The wall over the bed. I doused it with Feliway spray, and took down her favourite 'wrong' scratching places with it; the jumping and scratching lost their appeal. Attack all relevant areas, or get the diffuser.

Spaying cut a lot of the crazies, too.
posted by kmennie at 12:12 AM on February 2, 2007


One of my cats does this at 4 a.m. I found that changing my behavior instead of hers was the only solution: EAR PLUGS. They really help. I can still sort of hear the yowling but it seems far, far away.
posted by miss tea at 5:05 AM on February 2, 2007


seconding Listener. My cat does this before pooping--once he goes, he gets quiet. I haven't found a type of food that helps with this, though.
posted by chelseagirl at 6:40 AM on February 2, 2007


One of our vet friends wakes her cats when they try to nap during the day. It worked much better when someone was around all day, but they are mostly in the habit of keeping human hours.
posted by advicepig at 7:39 AM on February 2, 2007


chelseagirl: "seconding Listener. My cat does this before pooping--once he goes, he gets quiet. I haven't found a type of food that helps with this, though."

Huh. Mine actually are more prone to do this after pooping. It's a "Woo! I feel light as a feather!" kind of thing.
posted by loiseau at 9:11 AM on February 2, 2007


Good luck. Our cat has the truly annoying habit of pounding on our bedroom door with his paws...knocking to get in, as it were. We tried squirting him with water, but he knows to high-tail it before anyone actually opens the door. This results in my angry wife chasing a cat around the house with a squirt bottle at 2am. The cat assumes it's play-time, of course.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:43 AM on February 2, 2007


Response by poster: Yeah, Thorzad, that's pretty much what Nosy does. And he's a big boy - I'd rather try to sleep through him zooming around the house than body slamming the doors.

FWIW, we've totally increased playtime and the last two nights have been better.
posted by Space Kitty at 11:10 AM on February 2, 2007


I (mostly) cured my cat of her Kitty Madness by ignoring her. It's just not fun for the cat when her human won't play along. She still gets it sometimes (it's unavoidable that kitties must go bonkers every now and then), but she doesn't do it as much and it doesn't last as long.
posted by Mavri at 12:46 PM on February 2, 2007


« Older Magical Patent   |   The inside of the penis sac contains a penis? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.